Elizabeth I: Then and Now

The Folger Shakespeare Library includes among its holdings the largest collection of materials in North America relating to Elizabeth I, including thirty-eight documents signed by the queen. On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth’s death in March 1603, the Folger Library mounted an ambitious exhibition of more than one hundred books, manuscripts, and works of art from its collections. The rich materials in the Folger Library’s collection portray Elizabeth in stunning detail, as affectionate stepdaughter and censorious cousin, as humanist prince, as powerful and often capricious patroness, and as a private person. She was the center not only of national culture but also of a vibrant court culture with complex ritual practices such as elaborate New Year’s gift exchanges and summertime progresses through the countryside. Her self-fashioning literally involved the use of "fashion." She dressed to be seen; her clothes made a statement about her power as a female ruler and about the stability and strength of her nation. The many portraits of Elizabeth which survive, including the 1579 Sieve portrait featured on the cover, suggest the complex interplay between the queen’s politics of self-display and her powerful vanity. Essays by noted scholars Carole Levin, Heidi Brayman Hackel, Janel Mueller, Sheila Ffolliott, and Barbara Hodgdon explore Elizabeth’s life, her books, her portraits, the many documents in the Folger Library relating to her, and her continuing charismatic power in British and American culture.