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50 Shades of Elizabeth; or, “Doing History” in Pop Fiction

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Remembering Queens and Kings of Early Modern England and France

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Abstract

Contemporary women writers’ historical fictional novels and popular romance novels about Elizabeth I are rich sites revealing complicated relationships between history- and fiction writing. This chapter explores women writers’ claims that their fictional novels are historically accurate, as well as their claims that their novels contribute to historiographical interpretations of Elizabeth I’s life and legacy. Therefore, this chapter investigates the language moves and rhetorical strategies women novelists use to influence and thereby convince readers to accept as “fact” their fictions about Elizabeth. Tracing the writers’ strategies, the chapter specifically attends to novels’ paratexts—authors’ notes, appendices, bibliographies, and the like—sites that frame novels in ways that they appear as scholarly monographs, and sites that best reveal women writers’ explicit claims to “do” Elizabeth I’s history.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    E. L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), 221.

  2. 2.

    Devoney Looser, British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 22.

  3. 3.

    George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy: A Critical Edition, eds. Frank Whighan and Wayne A. Rebhorn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), 129, 128.

  4. 4.

    Richard Brathwaite, A Survey of History: Or, a Nursery for Gentry (London: J. Okes, 1638).

  5. 5.

    There is quite a long list of contemporary historical and/or romancenovels featuring Elizabeth I as a protagonist. For this chapter, I focused on the following texts: Philippa Gregory, The Virgin’s Lover (New York: Touchstone, 2004); Susan Kay, Legacy (Naperville: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2010); Robin Maxwell, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn (New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1997); Maxwell, The Queen’s Bastard (New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1999); Maxwell, Virgin (New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 2001); Rosalind Miles, I, Elizabeth (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1994); Alison Weir, The Lady Elizabeth (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008); and Weir, The Marriage Game (New York: Ballantine Books, 2014). Additionally, I also consulted the following novels: Anne Clinard Barnhill, Queen Elizabeth’s Daughter (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014); Karen Harper, The Thorne Maze (New York: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2003); Harper, The Poyson Garden (New York: Dell Publishing, 1999); and Harper, The Queen’s Governess (New York: New American Library, 2010).

  6. 6.

    James Todd Smith, Mr. Smith, LL Cool J. Def Jam Recordings, 1996, CD.

  7. 7.

    Philippa Gregory, The Virgin’s Lover (New York: Touchstone, 2005), no page.

  8. 8.

    Gregory, The Virgin’s Lover, 448–450.

  9. 9.

    Gregory, <The Virgin’s Lover, 439, emphasis added.

  10. 10.

    Janice A. Radway notes the argument of reader-response critics, which suggests that “the reader is responsible for what is made of the literary text.” However, Radway points out that this view ignores the “particular ideological power of [the] literary form” of romance (54, 55). Radaway finds that, primarily, romance readers are women—ranging from young adults to advance middle ages—and are deft critics of what counts as “good” or “bad” in terms of the romance genre, its plot, characters, and tropes. Still, she also explains that the audience of romancenovels “provided ample evidence that they … learn and remember facts about geography, historical customs, and dress from the books they read” (76, n. 16). It is this specific point on which my argument turns, as I suggest that women novelists, representing themselves as historians, count on their readers to remember and repeat the “facts” of their novels. See Radway, “Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context, Feminist Studies 9, no. 1 (1983), 53–78.

  11. 11.

    Radway, “Women Read the Romance,” vi.

  12. 12.

    Carole Levin, The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994); David Starkey, Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001); and Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I, 2nd ed., Profiles in Power Series (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 1998).

  13. 13.

    The website says, “Philippa graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in History, and received a PhD in 18th century literature from the University of Edinburgh…. She holds an honorary degree from Teesside University and is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff, and a Regent for the University of Edinburgh. Her love for history and commitment to historical accuracy are the hallmarks of her writing.” The site’s headmast reads: “Philippa Gregory │ Established historian & writer. International No. 1 best seller” (emphasis added). Philippa Gregory, “About Philippa,” Philippa Gregory, last modified, December 14, 2017, http://www.philippagregory.com/biography

  14. 14.

    Karen Britland, “Women in the Royal Courts,” in The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing, ed. Laura Lunger Knoppers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 128.

  15. 15.

    Looser, British Women Writers, 23.

  16. 16.

    On Mary Wroth, see Barbara K. Lewalski, “Writing Women and Reading the Renaissance,” Renaissance Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1991), 792–821; Josephine A. Roberts, “Labyrinths of Desire: Lady Mary Wroth’s Reconstruction of Romance,” Women’s Studies 19 (1991), 183–192; and Heide Towers, “Politics and Female Agency in Lady Mary Wroth’s Love’s Argument,” Women’s Writing 13, no. 3 (2006), 432–447. On Margaret Cavendish, see Tessie Prakas, “‘A World of her own Invention’: The Realm of Fancy in Margaret Cavendish’s The Description of a New World, called The Blazing World,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 16, no. 1 (2016), 115–145; and Sandra Sherman, “Trembling Texts: Margaret Cavendish and the Dialectic of Authorship,” English Literary Renaissance 24, no. 1 (1994), 184–210.

  17. 17.

    Britland, “Women in the Royal Courts,” 128.

  18. 18.

    Lori Humphrey Newcomb, “Prose Fiction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing, ed. Laura Lunger Knoppers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 273.

  19. 19.

    Humphrey Newcomb, “Prose Fiction,” 273–274.

  20. 20.

    Looser, British Women Writers, 10–11.

  21. 21.

    Looser, British Women Writers, 21.

  22. 22.

    Looser, British Women Writers, 21.

  23. 23.

    Raphael Holinshed, The Firste volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (London: John Hunne, 1577), iiiir.

  24. 24.

    Holinshed, The Firste volume, iiiir–iiiiv.

  25. 25.

    Lionel Gossman, “‘Back to the Future’: The Ars Historica,” History and Theory 47 (2008), 454.

  26. 26.

    Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, 99.

  27. 27.

    Phillip Sidney, The Defense of Poesie (London: William Ponsonby, 1595), B3r.

  28. 28.

    Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th ed., Vol. B: The Sixteenth Century/The Early Seventeenth Century, Gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012), 779.

  29. 29.

    Spenser, The Fairie Queene, 779.

  30. 30.

    Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 779.

  31. 31.

    Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, 99.

  32. 32.

    William Shakespeare, All is True (Henry VIII), in The Norton Shakespeare, 2nd ed., Gen ed., Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008), Prologue1. 4–21.

  33. 33.

    Shakespeare, All is True, 5.4.15–48.

  34. 34.

    Thomas Blundeville, The true order and Methode of wryting and reading Hystories (London: Willyam Seres, 1574), Eivv.

  35. 35.

    Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, 130.

  36. 36.

    Sidney, Defense of Poesy, E2r.

  37. 37.

    Maxwell, The Queen’s Bastard, 434.

  38. 38.

    James, 50 Shades, 221.

  39. 39.

    William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, in The Norton Shakespeare, 2nd ed., Gen ed., Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008), 399–463.

  40. 40.

    Shakespeare, Titus, 2.3.197–202.

  41. 41.

    Shakespeare, Titus, 4.2.75–76.

  42. 42.

    James, 50 Shades, 45.

  43. 43.

    “Sexposition,” Wikipedia, last modified September 2, 2017, https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexposition; Myles McNutt, “Game of Thrones—‘You Win or You Die’,” Cultural Learnings, Word Press, May 29, 2011, https://cultural-learnings.com/2011/05/29/game-of-thrones-you-win-or-you-die/

  44. 44.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 239.

  45. 45.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 241, 239.

  46. 46.

    Maxwell, The Queen’s Bastard, 433.

  47. 47.

    Maxwell, The Queen’s Bastard, 435.

  48. 48.

    Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, 475.

  49. 49.

    Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, 475.

  50. 50.

    Weir, The Marriage Game, 401.

  51. 51.

    Margaret George, Elizabeth (New York: Viking, 2011), 665.

  52. 52.

    George, Elizabeth, 665.

  53. 53.

    Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, 476.

  54. 54.

    Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, 487.

  55. 55.

    Miles, I, Elizabeth, 636.

  56. 56.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 434, 84.

  57. 57.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 239; The Queen’s Bastard, 434–435.

  58. 58.

    Miles, I, Elizabeth, 631.

  59. 59.

    Anonymous, directed by Roland Emmerich (2011; Los Angeles, CA: Columbia Pictures).

  60. 60.

    Gregory, The Virgin’s Lover, no page.

  61. 61.

    George, Elizabeth, 668–671.

  62. 62.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 240.

  63. 63.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 242.

  64. 64.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 242.

  65. 65.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 243.

  66. 66.

    George, Elizabeth, 666.

  67. 67.

    George, 668.

  68. 68.

    Weir, Lady Elizabeth, 475; The Marriage Game, 399.

  69. 69.

    Weir, The Marriage Game, 399.

  70. 70.

    Weir, The Marriage Game, 399.

  71. 71.

    Gregory, The Virgin’s Lover, 439.

  72. 72.

    Gregory, The Virgin’s Lover, no page.

  73. 73.

    Maxwell, The Secret Diary, no page; The Queen’s Bastard, no page; Virgin, no page.

  74. 74.

    Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, no page; The Marriage Game, no page.

  75. 75.

    Maxwell, Virgin, 242.

  76. 76.

    Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 2, 195.

  77. 77.

    James, 50 Shades, 312.

  78. 78.

    Frances E. Dolan, True Relations: Reading, Literature, and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 177.

  79. 79.

    Dolan, True Relations, 177.

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  1. English Department, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA

    Elizabeth Ann Mackay

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  1. New College of the Humanities, London, UK

    Estelle Paranque

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Mackay, E.A. (2019). 50 Shades of Elizabeth; or, “Doing History” in Pop Fiction. In: Paranque, E. (eds) Remembering Queens and Kings of Early Modern England and France. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22344-1_14

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