Reading Monarchs Writing: The Poetry of Henry VIII, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, and James VI/I

In the first book to examine the verse produced by Tudor and Stuart monarchs, eight Renaissance scholars (among them Lisa Hopkins, Constance Jordan, and Leah Marcus) demonstrate how monarchs used verse to reflect on their monarchic status and to assert royal policy. As almost all of the poetry of these regal authors is inaccessible, the volume includes a selection of their verse in modernized and newly edited texts, offering an ideal study volume for specialists and the classroom. The contributors examine the nexus of poetry and power from an unconventional New Historicist perspective: from that of the person in power who writes poetry rather than that of the suitor of power. Their approaches to the subject are interdisciplinary, combing literary studies, women's studies, history, the history of sexuality, and manuscript studies.