The visual images of Queen Elizabeth I displayed in contemporary portraits and perpetuated in more recent media such as film and television make her one of the most familiar and popular of all British monarchs. This collection of essays examines the diversity of the queen’s extensive iconographical repertoire, focusing on both visual and textual representations of Elizabeth, not only in portraiture and literature, but also in contemporary sermons, speeches, and alchemical treatises. The collection broadens critical thinking about Elizabeth. Each essay contributes to the debate about the queen’s developing iconicity not simply as a celebratory mode, but also as encoded criticism of her. Each of these essays explains the ways in which the varied representations of Elizabeth reflect the political and cultural anxieties of her subjects.

Annaliese Connolly is temporary lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and is currently studying for her Doctoral thesis. Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University.

Introduction * A World in Crisis: Elizabeth’s Iconography and Religious Tensions * Elizabeth I as Deborah The Judge: Exceptional Women of Power--Carol Blessing * Warlike Mates? Queen Elizabeth and Joan La Pucelle in Henry VI--Ben Spiller * "Rudenesse it Selfe She Doth Refine": Queen Elizabeth I as Lady Alchymia--Jayne Archer * Virginia And The Virgin: Elizabeth And The New World * Elizabeth I: Size Matters--Deanne Williams * "And in Their Midst a Sun": Petrarch’s Triumphs and the Elizabethan Icon--Heather Campbell * "Nature Without Labor": Virgin Queen and Virgin Land in Sir Walter Ralegh’s The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana--Helen J. Burgess * The Old World and the New: Classical Precedents * The Dark Side of the Moon: Semiramis and Titania--Lisa Hopkins * A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare’s Retrospective on Elizabeth I and the Iconography of Marriage--Annaliese Connolly * Cynthia Waning: Cynthia’s Revels Imagines the Death of the Queen--Matthew Steggle * Coda: Elizabeth’s Afterlife * "Turn Thy Tombe Into a Throne": Elizabeth I’s Death Rehearsal--Scott L. Newstok