1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910154601303321

Autore

Staines John D.

Titolo

The tragic histories of Mary Queen of Scots, 1560-1690 : rhetoric, passions, and political literature / / John D. Staines

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Routledge, , 2016

ISBN

1-351-88102-7

1-138-37631-0

1-315-23676-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (291 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

941.105092

Soggetti

Queens - Scotland

Scotland History Mary Stuart, 1542-1567

Great Britain History Elizabeth, 1558-1603

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Character, passion, and political rhetoric in Buchanan's Tragic history of the Queen of Scots -- 2. Mary's passions made public : other early versions of her tragic fall -- 3. The tragedy at Fotheringhay -- 4. Guile and public representation : Mary's tragedy in book V of The faerie queene -- 5. "Out of this lamentable fortune" : Mary's tragedy and the royal succession -- 6. Charles's grandmother and the rhetoric of revolution.

Sommario/riassunto

Author John Staines here argues that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers in England, Scotland, and France wrote tragedies of the Queen of Scots - royal heroine or tyrant, martyr or whore - in order to move their audiences towards political action by shaping and directing the passions generated by the spectacle of her fall. In following the retellings of her history from her lifetime through the revolutions and political experiments of the seventeenth century, this study identifies two basic literary traditions of her tragedy: one conservative, sentimental, and royalist, the other radical, skeptical, and republican. Staines provides new readings of Spenser and Milton, as well as of early modern dramatists, to compile a comprehensive study of the writings about this important historical and literary figure. He charts



developments in public rhetoric and political writing from the Elizabethan period through the Restoration, using the emotional representations of the life of this tragic woman and queen to explore early modern experiments in addressing and moving a public audience. By exploring the writing and rewriting of the tragic histories of the Queen of Scots, this book reveals the importance of literature as a force in the redefinition of British political life between 1560 and 1690.