Agents of History: Women and Royal Politics in Early Modern Historical Narratives and Plays
Meyer, Allison E.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/81464
Description
Title
Agents of History: Women and Royal Politics in Early Modern Historical Narratives and Plays
Author(s)
Meyer, Allison E.
Issue Date
2010
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Lori Humphrey Newcomb
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Theater History
Language
eng
Abstract
This study analyzes history writing ranging from the chronicle history of Edward Hall and Polydore Vergil, the political histories of Thomas More and Francis Bacon, and the Protestant martyrology of John Foxe, to the canonical Shakespearean works and lesser-known dramas that comprised the history play genre, most popular in the 1590s but written as late as the 1630s. Unlike previous literary critics who view historical narratives primarily as source texts for history plays, I treat the narratives and plays as intertexts whose disjunctions have real effects on audiences and readers. I analyze Richard III, The True Tragedy of Richard III, Edward IV, Henry VIII, and Perkin Warbeck as thoughtful dramatic revisions of narrative history that invite readers and audiences to recall the contrastive historical accounts available across these genres. By juxtaposing intertextual histories, I show how competing representations of female figures informed popular historical consciousness and conceptions of women's participation in the emerging national identity of Tudor and Stuart England.
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