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how the literary methods Elizabeth employed to combat constraints altered depending upon these different audiences, focusing particularly upon her identity as a woman.
This dissertation was partly inspired by the marginalisation of monarchic writing. The avoidance of these works could be for several reasons; perhaps the lack of literary excellence, (the writings are arguably skilled, but nothing outstanding), or the accessibility and reliability of the verse. Despite this, criticism on Queen Elizabeth I’s writing does exist. A fundamental text to which this work is indebted is Ilona Bell’s Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch, but Bell’s chronological focus limits its analysis to a more generalised look at Elizabeth’s life. Criticism which focuses solely upon monarchs can also be found in Peter C. Herman’s invaluable Royal Poetrie: Monarchic Verse and the Political Imaginary of Early Modern England. Thus investigation into the credibility of monarchic verse justly asks for a re-assessment of royal writings: ‘There are no good reasons, in sum, for ignoring this poetry’. Herman’s focus upon several monarchs however – a chapter each dedicated to Henry VIII, Mary, Elizabeth, James and Charles – restricts the extent of exploration into the feminine quality of Elizabeth’s work, in the same way that Bell’s chronological approach is similarly confined. I hope to add a gendered approach to the work begun by the likes of Herman; ‘Elizabeth demands a new assessment of what it meant to write as a woman in the