Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Queen Elizabeth I
-
Standard Name: Elizabeth I, Queen
Birth Name: Elizabeth Tudor
Royal Name: Elizabeth I
QEI
was a scholar by training and inclination (who wrote translations both as learning exercises and for recreation), as well as a writer in many genres and several languages. As monarch she wrote speeches, and all her life she wrote letters, poems, and prayers. (Some of these categories occasionally overlap.) Once her writing moved beyond the dutifulness of her youth, she had a pungent and forceful style both in prose and poetry.
The next year, 1955, saw the publication of JP
's Tudor novel Gay Lord Robert, about Elizabeth I
and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
(whose title was initially Lord Robert, since he was...
Publishing
Jean Plaidy
In 1961 JP
published under this name two historical novels for young people: The Young Elizabeth, illustrated by William Randell
, and Meg Roper
: Daughter of Sir Thomas More.
Plaidy, Jean, and William Randell. The Young Elizabeth. Roy Publishers.
This novel describes the years of Mary's imprisonment by Elizabeth
. Its plots, counterplots and torture, the desperate appeals written by its protagonist to potential supporters from her various dank prisons, are all over-shadowed by...
Textual Production
Jean Plaidy
JP
's next two Victoria Holt novels appeared in 1966 and 1967: Menfreya (published in the USA as Menfreya in the Morning) and The King of the Castle, respectively. She then allowed Holt...
Textual Production
Diana Primrose
The only known work by the unidentified DP
, A Chaine of Pearle; or, a Memorial of . . . Queen Elizabeth (a sequence of ten poems) was entered in the Stationers' Register
; it...
Publishing
Diana Primrose
The full title of this tribute (to a reign which had ended a generation previously) was A Chaine of Pearle; or, a Memorial of the Peerles [sic] Graces and Heroick Vertues of Queen Elizabeth, of...
Textual Features
Sally Purcell
On a Cenotaph quotes a phrase from Baudelaire
's poem Lesbos: the shocking juxtaposition of a dead body with adoration in le cadavre adoré di Sapho
. Though SP
supplied notes to some things...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sally Purcell
These poems dwell in SP
's familiar territory of icy waters, towers and forests, dreaming stones, desert saints, and mythological fauns and mermaids. March 1603 presents Queen Elizabeth
on her deathbed, with a sword by...
Literary Setting
Emma Robinson
This was set in the days when the Dutch Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium and part of northern France), led by William of Orange
(that is, William the Silent, 1533-84), rebelled...
Textual Features
Mary Robinson
MR
writes as a friend to the Revolution, but enters with strong emotion into the personal situation of the queen
as the victim of scandal and prejudice. She cites Elizabeth I
and Cromwell
as examples...
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Roper
The family of Thomas More
were merchants and lawyers of London's bourgeois ruling class: Thomas duly became a lawyer and out of personal passion became a scholar of the new humanist learning. He married again...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Margaret Sackville
Vita Sackville-West
was LMS
's second cousin: Queen Elizabeth I
had presented their common ancestor, Thomas Sackville
(a minor writer), with Knole, near Sevenoaks, the estate that Vita was barred from inheriting because of...
Cultural formation
Vita Sackville-West
She was born into the noble Sackville family, one of the oldest-established in England. Her father, the third Baron Sackville, inherited Knole, the estate given to Thomas Sackville by Elizabeth I
in 1566. Vita herself...
Intertextuality and Influence
Sappho
Sappho
's name was an honorific for women writers for generations. George Puttenham
may have been the first to use it to compliment a writing woman: in Parthienades, 1579, he said that Queen Elizabeth
Textual Production
Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
MAS
describes several very early writing projects. When her mother gave her a writing-case which locked, to ensure privacy, she spent hours in pouring out the effusions of my own bitter heart,
Schimmelpenninck, Mary Anne. Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck. Editor Hankin, Christiana C., Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts.
