Krantz
English 4620
Reading guide
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Queen Elizabeth's success as a ruler during a tumultuous period of English history was at least partly due to the length of her reign (45 years) but also to her political savvy. The Norton Anthology notes that "at six years old, ŠElizabeth had as much gravity as if she had been forty."
1. To what influence(s) did Elizabeth owe her skills as a politician?
2. How was she, like many poets of her day, a humanist?
3. How and why did she deflect pressure to marry?

Stephen Greenblatt, New Historicist and noted literary critic of the English Renaissance, speaks of the period in which people (chief among them the queen and her courtiers) practiced "self-fashioning."
4. How, in her life, her letters, and her speeches did Elizabeth practice self fashioning?

The doubt of future foes
5. What are the dominant metaphors in this poem?
6. What oppositions are set up in the poem for poetic effect?
7. What is the rhyme scheme?
8. Note the presence and effect of any other poetic technique.

On Monsieur's Departure
9. How are the oppositions operating in this poem?
10. What tone is created for the poem?

To Sir Amyas Paulet
11. What rhetorical strategies do you perceive in this letter? What, if any, affect do those strategies have on the reader?

To Henry III, king of France
12. How does Elizabeth use self-fashioning in this letter?
13. How do Elizabeth's self-assurance and courage appear in the letter?

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury
14. How does Elizabeth use oxymoron here?
15. What is reminiscent of the letter to Sir Amyas?
The "Golden Speech"
16. How does "Self-Fashioning" occurring here?
17. How does the speech show Elizabeth's ability to turn events to her own political ends?
18. Why does Elizabeth speak of having the "last judgement day before [her] eyes"?
19. How does the speech show the effects of her father's institution of the "Divine Right" of kings?
20. Close to the end of her speech, Elizabeth mentions her "sexly weakness" and also talks of not attributing anything to herself. Explain how her speech deconstructs these notions.