Elizabeth I, the Subversion of Flattery, and John Lyly’s Court Plays and Entertainments

By (author) Theodora A. Jankowski

Book cover: Elizabeth I, the Subversion of Flattery, and John Lyly’s Court Plays and Entertainments

Hardback (Published)

(July 2018)

ISBN: 9781580443333

6.14 x 9.21 inches

Price: $89.99

In stock

PDF (Published)

(July 2018)

ISBN: 9781580443340

Price: $89.99

~ENG~This book examines how John Lyly uses allegory and conventional imagery to magnify Elizabeth I’s political power as well as simultaneously denigrate her.


Theodora Jankowski looks at both the light and the dark side of the Elizabeth character in each of John Lyly’s court plays, while at the same time considering how that allegory works in terms of the various issues Lyly debates within the plays. She demonstrates how Lyly, while praising the queen and accepting her beneficence, simultaneously manages to present his audiences with the “dark queen,” the opposite side of the positive image of the Queen of England.

1. Introduction: Elizabeth I, John Lyly, and the Monstrosity of Icons 2. Rulership and the Monarch's Two Bodies in Sapho and Phao, Campaspe, and Midas 3. Gender, Alpha Males, and All-Around Bullies in Love's Metamorphosis 4. Sexuality, Lesbian Desire, and the Necessity of a Penis in Gallathea 5. Male Friendship and Unruly Women in Endimion 6. Early Modern Economics in the Entertainments Coda: The Man in the Moon and The Woman in the Moon or Whose Moon is it Really?,

1. Introduction: Elizabeth I, John Lyly, and the Monstrosity of Icons
2. Rulership and the Monarch's Two Bodies in Sapho and Phao, Campaspe, and Midas
3. Gender, Alpha Males, and All-Around Bullies in Love's Metamorphosis
4. Sexuality, Lesbian Desire, and the Necessity of a Penis in Gallathea
5. Male Friendship and Unruly Women in Endimion
6. Early Modern Economics in the Entertainments
Coda: The Man in the Moon and The Woman in the Moon or Whose Moon is it Really?
  • By (author) Theodora A. Jankowski

"As a whole, Jankowski's book offers an interesting analysis of Lyly's plays that engages with some of the newest criticism of Lyly. . . . Jankowski suggests that in Lyly's plays he does represent the positive Elizabeth, but it is impossible not to find the dark Elizabeth. For Jankowski, the positives images always carry the negative images with them. This idea by itself is thought-provoking and gives pause to all of the overtly positive images of Elizabeth that were created during her reign." --Valerie Schutte, The Medieval Review, 19.11.22
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