Ten feminist-materialist explorations of the oppression of women in England from the early Renaissance to the 1650s, draw on women's place in courtesy books, royal office, drama, and other social, political, and literary arenas. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"A fable satirizing Spenser's 'The Fairie Queen' and reflecting the real life of Elizabeth I, tells of a woman who ascends to the throne upon the death of her debauched and corrupted father, King Hern. Gloriana's reign brings the Empire of Albion into a Golden Age, but her oppressive responsibilities choke her, prohibiting any form of sexual satisfaction, no matter what fetish she tries. Her problem is in fact symbolic of the hypocrisy of her entire court. While her life is meant to mirror that of her nation - an image of purity, virtue, enlightenment and prosperity - the truth is that her peaceful empire is kept secure by her wicked chancellor Monfallcon and his corrupt network of spies and murderers, the most sinister of whom is Captain Quire, who is commissioned to seduce Gloriana and thus bring down Albion and the entire empire." -- Goodreads.com.

Of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays, fifteen include queens. This collection gives these characters their due as powerful early modern women and agents of change, bringing together new perspectives from scholars of literature, history, theater, and the fine arts. Essays span Shakespeare’s career and cover a range of famous and lesser-known queens, from the furious Margaret of Anjou in the Henry VI plays to the quietly powerful Hermione in The Winter’s Tale; from vengeful Tamora in Titus Andronicus to Lady Macbeth. Early chapters situate readers in the critical concerns underpinning any discussion of Shakespeare and queenship: the ambiguous figure of Elizabeth I, and the knotty issue of gender presentation. The focus then moves to analysis of issues such as motherhood, intertextuality, and contemporary political contexts; close readings of individual plays; and investigations of rhetoric and theatricality. Featuring twenty-five chapters with a rich variety of themes and methodologies, this handbook is an invaluable reference for students and scholars, and a unique addition to the fields of Shakespeare and queenship studies.

In 1649, Charles I was executed before Whitehall Palace in London. This event had a major impact not only in the British Isles, but also on the continent, where British exiles, diplomats and agents waged propaganda battles to conquer the minds of foreign audiences. In the Dutch Republic, above all, their efforts had a significant impact on public opinion, and succeeded in triggering violent debate. This is the first book-length study devoted to the continental backlash of the English Civil Wars. Interdisciplinary in scope and drawing on a wide range of sources, from pamphlets to paintings, Helmer Helmers shows how the royalist cause managed to triumph in one of the most unlikely places in early modern Europe. In doing so, Helmers transforms our understanding of both British and Dutch political culture, and provides new contexts for major literary works by Milton, Marvell, Huygens, and many others.

Qingyun Wu's work is a unique discovery in literary studies in the West. Chinese utopian literature paired with its English counterparts form an original and valuable contribution to world literature. In widely varying historical and cultural texts that span the last five centuries, Wu analyzes the theme of female rule, including a critique of patriarchy and emphasizing a vision for women. To date, Chinese utopias have been insufficiently explored and unavailable to Western scholars. Wu's theories of the politics of female rule, as seen in Chinese and English literature since the end of the sixteenth century, are predicated on three significant changes that have taken place during those periods. These include an outright rejection of rule by women to rule by women in the guise of men, from individual to collective female rule, and from an idealized matrilineality to anarchism by the female principle. Works examined include Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Luo Maodeng's Sanbao's Expedition to the Western Ocean, Florence Dixie's Gloriana, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed, Chen Duansheng's The Destiny of the Next Life, Li Ruzhen's The Flowers in the Mirror, and Bai Hua's The Remote Country of Women. This critical view of the development of feminist utopias in both the East and West will be of interest to scholars of women's studies, political science, and anthropology as well as to those in literature for both the classical and modern periods.