Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Major/Program
English
First Advisor's Name
James Sutton
First Advisor's Committee Title
Committee Chair
Second Advisor's Name
Kenneth Johnson
Third Advisor's Name
Andrew Strycharski
Keywords
Edmund Spenser, Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, Faerie Queene
Date of Defense
11-14-2013
Abstract
My thesis proposes a feminist-queer reading of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in response to Julian Wolfreys’ “The ‘Endlesse Worke’ of Transgression”.
I examine the challenges to male authority that the low-born poet, Spenser, faced when he presented his manual for the formation of new English subjects to his sovereign queen, Elizabeth I. The Prefatory Letter to Raleigh and passages from the 1590 version of the epic provide evidence to support the view that traditional hierarchical male/female binaries may have been destabilized by the presence of an unmarried queen. My thesis also supplements Wolfreys’ essay with historical information regarding Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart in order to underscore the ethnocentric aspect of the process of “othering” that takes place in The Faerie Queene.
Identifier
FI13120603
Recommended Citation
Palacios, Alexandra Sofia, "A Common Man Trapped inside the Queen’s Body" (2013). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1018.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1018
Included in
English Language and Literature Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons
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