Sample Solution

Some may argue that resistance in this epigram is tentative – though the verb and the adjective are, to an extent, mutually exclusive. Lisa Hopkins remains adamant that despite flashes of strength, overall, ‘Elizabeth feels less free to commit herself. Indeed, I shall be suggesting that Elizabeth was, in fact, nervous of writing because in an age of ambiguity and wordplay, it offered too many hostages to fortune’. I agree to an extent with Hopkins – Elizabeth was nervous, but, if anything, wordplays and ambiguities allowed for the Queen’s most effective subtle jibes. Hopkins does later accept this viewpoint however; ‘ambiguities and suggestiveness were strengths rather than handicaps’. This matches my line of argument: Elizabeth employed vague literary devices – ambiguities, wordplay, syntax – to show resistance when she was at her most restricted.

In later epigrams, the Queen directly addresses gender constructs to manifest her resistance. In ‘Defiance of Fortune’ (1589) for example, there exists the idea that the Queen was caught between the inevitability of fortune and constraints of her gender: ‘Never think you fortune can bear the sway / Where virtue’s force can cause her to obey’. Indeed, the poem asks fortune to not be so adamant in the power of its wheel, ‘bear the sway’, as the pressure of ‘virtue’s force’ (her feminised expectations), can be dominant. Interestingly, the reticence witnessed in Elizabeth’s earlier, most vulnerable epigram has almost entirely disappeared. Elizabeth is represented as actively declaring that she shall not be passive and leave her fate to chance. This is made possible by the change in power relationship to her audience. By this point, Elizabeth’s power as England’s monarch allows for a more active verse, although the self-deprecating tone which claims her gender may still limit her ability remains. I believe however that admittance of her ‘weak’ gender is itself a sign of resistance. She is once again not allowing potential opponents to seek out problems when she herself has negotiated them.

In other poems addressing an international audience, Elizabeth similarly tackles