The Cult Of Elizabeth - Softcover

Strong, R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712664815 ISBN 13: 9780712664813

Publisher: Pimlico, 1999

Synopsis

No other woman in world history has been of such compulsive interest as Elizabeth Tudor. While the rest of the 16th century Europe was subject to the bloodshed of religious war, Tudor peace brought England its great flowering of the arts. Central to that flowering was the enigmatic legend of the Queen herself, a myth deliberately created and sustained over four decades by public spectacle and courtly chivalry, by private sonnet and official oration.

About this title

About the Author

Sir Roy Strong is well-known as an historian and garden writer, lecturer, critic, columnist and regular contributor to both radio and television. He was Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1967-73 and of the V&A from 1974-87. In 1980 he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK. He has published a number of highly acclaimed books and his recent publications include THE STORY OF BRITAIN, THE SPIRIT OF BRITAIN, A COUNTRY LIFE, FEAST, CORONATION, THE LASKETT and his own diaries. He lives in Herefordshire.

From the Back Cover

A learned and beautifully produced book...splendid.' A.L. Rowse, Sunday Telegraph

No other woman in world history has been of such compulsive interest as Elizabeth Tudor. While the rest of sixteenth-century Europe was subject to the bloodshed of religious war, Tudor peace brought England its great flowering of the arts. Central to that flowering was the enigmatic legend of the Queen herself, a myth deliberately created and sustained over four decades by public spectacle and courtly chivalry, by private sonnet and official oration - the arts moving in concert in homage to an earthly deity.
This is the thread which is followed in this book, as the source and meaning of the most famous and potent of all Elizabethan pictures and pageantry are unravelled: of Nicholas Hilliard's hypnotic Young Man amongst Roses, the famous Blackfriars Procession, the Ermine and Rainbow portraits of the Queen, the story picture of Sir Henry Unton, the festivals of Accession Day, and the ritual of the Garter.
In this fascinating and lavishly illustrated book, the fruit of nearly twenty years of research, Roy Strong fuses history, politics, religion, literature and the visual arts into a unique revelation of what actually constituted the Elizabethan image. The illustrations, through choice of telling detail and illuminating juxtaposition, develop further the iconographic exploration of the Elizabethan era.
'The scholarship of The Cult of Elizabeth is brilliant.' Peter Conrad, New Statesman

'A scholarly, sophisticated, superbly illustrated study.' Christopher Hill, New York Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712664815
• ISBN 13: 9780712664813
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224