230614 The Virgin Queen: Her Life and Times (S) (WiSe 2026/2027)

“I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant!” This is the statement England's most iconic queen makes in the satirical period sit-com Blackadder. The real Queen Elizabeth I, in contrast, is reported to have announced that she had “the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”, which pinpoints the main challenge of her 45-year reign (1558-1603): She was a woman doing a man’s job at an extremely difficult time.
In this seminar we will discuss how this remarkable woman mastered the challenges of her life, and how she managed to turn the disadvantage of her sex into an asset. Her speech on the occasion of the Spanish Armada continues: “and [I] think foul scorn that [the Duke of] Parma or [the King of] Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm”. “My realm” has a double meaning: it is England, but also the queen’s body. The King of Spain had wanted to marry Elizabeth and gain control of England via marriage. But she allowed no man to “invade her borders”, and England was safe in the hands of the "Virgin Queen".
Some interest in Elizabethan England (which for 40 years was also Shakespeare’s England) is a requirement in this seminar; some historical knowledge would an advantage, but we will work on this together. We will look at historical statements by and about Elizabeth I as well as at fictional representations, including the two films with Cate Blanchett.

Please note that this class is linked with Prof. Dr. Anne Schröder’s class "The Virgin Queen and her Age: (Socio-)linguistic Aspects", Thursdays 14-16, and you should therefore expect some (obligatory) joint sessions. For full immersion in Elizabethan England, you might like to take both classes together, but this is not obligatory.

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen, notwendige Vorkenntnisse

You have to have passed both parts of the LPT in order to take part in profile module courses.

Literaturangaben

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