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The Cult Of Elizabeth
No other woman in world history has been of such compulsive interest as Elizabeth Tudor. While the rest of the 16th-century Europe was subject to the bloodshed of religious war, Tudor peace brought England its great flowering of the arts. Central to that flowering was the enigmatic legend of the Queen herself, a myth deliberately created and sustained over four decades by public spectacle and courtly chivalry, by private sonnet and official oration.
227 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Roy Strong
171 books27 followersSir Roy Colin Strong FRSL (23 August 1935 - ) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer.
He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was knighted in 1983.
He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was knighted in 1983.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 21, 2013
An account of the pageantry and symbolism about the Elizabethan court.
The first parts deal with three surviving paintings and their imagery. The parts about trying to identify the faces, particularly when you have only other portraits to go by, was rather dry, But the iconography was interesting.
More interesting was the second part, which covers ceremony. The Accession Day celebrations, and other festivities that revolved about the queen, and replaced such mere pagan festivities as, say, Christmas and Easter. The tilts and all the ceremony and spectacle involved -- and the elaborate imagery deployed by the knights' disguises out of the chivalric romances. The difficulty of decyphering their impressa, with the shield and motto. The mythological imagery deployed about Elizabeth. And the Order of the Garter, still on St. George's day despite the whole Protestant bit, and the ceremonies there.
The first parts deal with three surviving paintings and their imagery. The parts about trying to identify the faces, particularly when you have only other portraits to go by, was rather dry, But the iconography was interesting.
More interesting was the second part, which covers ceremony. The Accession Day celebrations, and other festivities that revolved about the queen, and replaced such mere pagan festivities as, say, Christmas and Easter. The tilts and all the ceremony and spectacle involved -- and the elaborate imagery deployed by the knights' disguises out of the chivalric romances. The difficulty of decyphering their impressa, with the shield and motto. The mythological imagery deployed about Elizabeth. And the Order of the Garter, still on St. George's day despite the whole Protestant bit, and the ceremonies there.
Displaying 1 of 1 review