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University Microfilms International 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John's Road, Tyler's Green High Wycombe, Bucks, England HP10 8HR 77-31,938 MUTH, Marcia Finley, 1945-< ELIZABETHAN PRAISE OF THE QUEEN: DRAMATIC INTERACTION IN ROYAL PANEGYRIC. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1977 Literature, English University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan48ioe © Copyright by Marcia Finley Muth 1977 ELIZABETHAN PRAISE OF THE QUEEN: DRAMATIC INTERACTION IN ROYAL PANEGYRIC DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Marcia Finley Muth, B.A., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1977 Reading Committee Approved By Robert C . Jones David O. Frantz Edwin W.\Robbins ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have incurred many obligations during these final years of my doctoral program. My advisor, Professor Robert C. Jones, has been sensitive and humane throughout. His counsel has always been honest and helpful and his questions provocative. I am particularly grateful that he has allowed and respected my independent growth as a scholar and that he has taught me, by his example, much about teaching and scholarship. My committee members. Professors David 0. Frantz and Edwin W. Robbins, have given my work careful and prompt reading. Their valuable stylistic and substantive suggestions have been one measure of my good fortune in working with them. My research has been assisted greatly by the staff and facilities of The Ohio State University Library. In particular, I wish to thank the staffs of the English and Speech Graduate Library and of the Special Collections whose curator, Robert A. Tibbetts, generously has allowed me to duplicate otherwise inaccessible items. Through the patience of the Microform Room staff, I have learned not to be intimidated by the machinery of the twentieth century as it allows access to the literature of the sixteenth, especially the invaluable Early English Books 1475-1640 microfilm series from ii University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. My greatest debt is the most difficult to acknowledge satisfactorily here. My husband, Rodney, has helped me in many ways, but his affection, solace, and encouragement have made all the difference. VITA August 7, 1945. , . Born - South Bend, Indiana 1967.................... B.A. , Pomona College, Claremont, California 1971.................. .. M.A., Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California 1972-1973 ............. Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1973-19 74 .............. N.D.E.A. Title IV Fellow, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 19 74-19 75 .............. Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State Univer­ sity, Columbus, Ohio 1975.................... Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Spring 1977 ........... Lecturer, Part-time, Division of Comparative Literature, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Literature Renaissance Literature. Professor Robert C. Jones Medieval Literature. Professor Walter Scheps Nineteenth Century American Literature. Professor Julian Markels The Novel. Professor Arnold Shapiro TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............. ii VITA .................................... iv Chapter I. INTRODUCTION: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT ......... 1 II. IDEALIZATION: THE ADORATION FROM A DISTANCE . 34 III. EXHORTATION: THE PATTERNS FOR SOVEREIGN AND PEOPLE ................................ 62 IV. PERSONALIZATION: THE INDIVIDUAL FOCUS ........ 99 V. DRAMATIZATION: THE ABSORPTION INTO FICTION . 126 VI. ACTUALIZATION: THE FUSION OF FICTION AND REALITY ....................................... 177 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................. 230 V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT On September 10, 1533, a royal newborn was carried to the Friars Church at Greenwich where "the Child was brought to the font, and christned; and that done, Garter chiefe King of Armes cryed aloud, 'God of his infinit goodnesse send prosperous life and long to the high and mightie Princesse of England ELIZABETH!*"^ Despite the trumpets and torches, the rich gifts and the ceremonious processional, this child was a disappointment, and her father did not attend her christening. Neither Henry VIII nor anyone else could anticipate the events which would transmute an account of this inauspicious beginning to a prophetic anticipation of an English golden age. Eighty years later when the reenactment of this occasion concluded Henry VIII, the infant's godfather, Archbishop Cranmer, predicted a glorious era to her father: Let me speake Sir, For Heauen now bids me; and the words I vtter, Let none thinke Flattery; for they'l finde 'em Truth. This Royall Infant, Heauen still moue about her; Though in her Cradle; yet now promises Vpon this Land a thousand thousand Blessings, Which Time shall bring to ripenesses She shall be, (But few now liuing can behold that goodnesse) A Patterne to all Princes liuing with her. 2 And all that shall succeed: Saba was neuer More couetous of Wisedome, and faire Vertue Then this pure Soule shall be. All Princely Graces That mould vp such a mighty Piece as this is, With all the Vertues that attend the good. Shall still be doubled on her. Truth shall Nurse her. Holy and Heauenly thoughts still Counsell' her: She shall be lou'd and fear'd. Her owne shall blesse her; Her Foes shake like a Field of beaten Come, And hang their heads with sorrow: Good growes with her. In her dayes, Euery Man shall eate in safety, Vnder his owne Vine what he plants; and sing The merry Songs of Peace to all his Neighbours. God shall be truely knowne, and those about her. From her shall read the perfect way of Honour, And by those claime their greatnesse; not by B l o o d . 2 When the prophetic Cranmer played his part, he eulogized the Queen of a decade past, already of "famous memory." His speech, however, drew heavily on panegyric themes prevalent during her lifetime. In the eyes of her devoted contemporaries, Queen Elizabeth I reigned as God's special blessing on England, a pattern to princes and people alike. Personified virtues attended her and loyal subjects blessed her. She was adored, idealized, and dramatized in the- literature and arts of her time. The works of her best known and most extensively studied poet, Edmund Spenser, will not be considered directly here in order to allow a fuller examination of the hundreds of other vernacular works that praised Queen Elizabeth during her lifetime. In this literature, the Queen is cast in a variety of roles as a literary subject and character, interacting in different ways with her writers and her audience. She is idealized by the humble poet, a societal spokesman who invites his audience to join in her adoration. Her praise becomes the occasion for religious, political, or personal attempts by earnest and presumptuous writers to influence her behavior and that of the audience. Her double role as literary subject and audience is fully exploited in those works in which she assumes a fictional or active role, dramatized and managed by her writers, observed and celebrated by her audience. In her presence, as a literary figure derived from the actual world, distinctions between reality and fiction fade. As she is drawn into a created role or realm, her actions reflect on those of her living, historical counterpart, just as her people and her audience see themselves similarly mirrored in fictional characters and their actions. She remains the Queen, but becomes a subject's