Work in Progress: Gender and Politics in Late Elizabethan Progress Entertainments

My study focuses on five late entertainments that feature women in prominent roles at Bisham Abbey (1592), Sudeley Castle (1592), Rycote Park (1592), Wilton estate (1599), and Harefield manor (1602). I analyze these performances, along with their afterlives in print and manuscript, in their precise historical moments to uncover the specific negotiations each enacts between aristocrats and the Queen. Writers Mary Sidney and Elizabeth Russell, patrons Alice Egerton and Margery Norreys, and young female performers such as Elizabeth Brydges used late Elizabethan progress entertainments to engage directly in debates about gender and political authority and to accomplish a wide range of goals: they lobbied for positions at court, urged the Queen to adopt certain policies, advertised their wealth and influence, and sought further power. I propose that several decades of successful female rule encouraged noblewomen to fashion themselves in the Queen's image and perform political roles.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Kolkovich, Elizabeth Zeman

Contributors dc:contributor

• Carol Thomas Neely

• Performing Arts

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3392098

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81457