Eng 117 - Blog 7

As I will be in Ireland this weekend, I thought I should get this blog out of the way before hand. :)

I just read the Elizabeth Southwell writing. It is funny that the writing is called "A True Relation of What Succeeded at the Sickness and Death of Queen Elizabeth". This is funny because the whole thing is based on superstition. 

According to Southwell's writing, Elizabeth died of one of two reasons. Elizabeth was completely healthy until she received the necklace that was said to kept another woman alive for 120 years. I am pretty doubtful that a woman in the early 1600's lived to 120 years, but I guess they believed it. So this health charm, made Elizabeth sick, according to this essay.

This essay also mentions a voodoo doll type item. Elizabeth's ladies found a queen of hearts card under Elizabeth's chair with a nail going through the forehead of it. Southwell probably believed that this was a cause of Elizabeth's illness, as well as I am sure a lot of other people did too at the time. 

I looked briefly online at the sources of her death, and I guess we do not really know exactly. It was probably just simply old age, since she was 70 years old. But people will believe what they want to believe, as well as what others believe in their time. And since I cannot prove otherwise, I guess I should not rule these theories out. 

This will stand in time as possible reasons: unlucky charm necklaces and voodoo dolls.

Eng 117 - Blog 6

I am looking at the Giacometti Elizabeth play and one thing I find funny so far, is Elizabeth's view of Leicester. I am only a 1/3 of the way through this play, so her feelings about him might be different in the parts I haven't read yet, but so far they are not positive.

I have gotten so used to seeing Leicester as the man she loves. She never looked at him in negative in our readings so far, but here, her love interest has been moved to Essex, and she speaks of Leicester as a traitor. 

This happens in the play when she gets a letter from him, where he speaks like a king. She is offended that he thinks he is so "high up the ladder", or in her terms, "eyes upwards towards the clouds." 

That is not really significant, but I thought it sounds a little funny and out of place from what we've read and seen of their relationship. But this play is quite different in its depiction of Elizabeth from most works we've looked at so far, and this is just a simple example of that.

Eng 117 - Blog 5

After reading Elizabeth's speech to the troops, the poem by Thomas Deloney and some of the Author's intro about this event, I feel like some things do not match up again.

Just like when we talked about how Elizabeth is always portrayed in one of two very different ways, great Queen, or beautiful romantic woman, I am seeing the same thing here.

In the intro, it is explained that this act of joining the troops was great for Elizabeth's career. People saw her as a mighty warrior. The people of England imagined what she must have looked like with armor on. The speech she gave was very strong and warrior-like. She told her men she is willing to die just like they are for her country. This is the tough warrior Queen Elizabeth.

But Thomas Deloney sees and portrays her very differently in his poem. What I got out of the poem, was that she showed up to the battle field, but not to fight. She is there to encourage her men by being beautiful and important. She does not eat like the troops do, but instead her usual royal dinner in safety; she is there with her lords and ladies, all wearing diamonds. 

At the end, the poem says "passed away", which to us sounds like death, but I think it just means that she left. 

Anyway, again, we have these discrepancies. I guess they are not really discrepancies, just different ways of viewing the same event, but with Elizabeth, the pattern continues of not being able to show both roles in literature, but always either one or the other.