After Elizabeth: representations of female rule in Massinger's tragicomedies

Abstract

The perception, memories and representations of Elizabeth in the early seventeenth century can hardly be separated by political concerns. As Jacobean and Caroline governments were progressively distancing themselves from the values Elizabeth had been known to support, the idealized memory of good Queen Bess could also be effectively reframed and used as a form of opposition to the rule of James and Charles. The representation of women rulers in Philip Massinger's tragicomedies may be read as a crucial example of the way a nostalgic vision of Elizabeth blends in with more contemporary considerations about female authority as well as representations of ideal relationships between the sexes and between the monarch and his/her people. The purpose of this article is to investigate some of the implications of the so‐called myth of Elizabeth, and the way some dramatic representations of the female governor complicate and integrate the example of Elizabeth as idealized monarch and become part of a wider investigation on hierarchy and the private/public conduct of rulers in Jacobean and Caroline times.