The Queen's Mercy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. “By Nature Full of Mercy”: The Clemency of the Queen

   • Mary Villeponteaux

   Pages 1-33

3. “The Sacred Pledge of Peace and Clemencie”: Elizabethan Mercy in The Faerie Queene

   • Mary Villeponteaux

   Pages 35-65

4. “Proud and Pitilesse”: Elizabethan Mercy and the Sonnet Tradition

   • Mary Villeponteaux

   Pages 67-106

5. “A Goodly Musicke in Her Regiment”: Elusive Justice in The Merchant of Venice

   • Mary Villeponteaux

   Pages 107-131

6. “Pardon Is Still the Nurse of Second Woe”: Measure for Measure and the Transition from Elizabeth to James

   • Mary Villeponteaux

   Pages 133-156

7. “Good Queene, You Must Be Rul’d”: Feminine Mercy in the Plays of Heywood and Dekker

   • Mary Villeponteaux

   Pages 157-173

8. Back Matter

   Pages 175-227

   PDF

During the Elizabethan era, writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Daniel, and others frequently expounded on mercy, exploring the sources and outcomes of clemency. This fresh reading of such depictions shows that the concept of mercy was a contested one, directly shaped by tensions over the exercise of judgment by a woman on the throne.

• concept
• gender
• music
• nature
• reason
• tradition
• William Shakespeare

'Villeponteaux offers us a much-needed first book-length study of the contradictory facets of Elizabeth's royal image as a queen of mercy. In a study full of delicate nuance and artful analysis, Villeponteaux brings together the fields of literature, history, theology, and gender studies to create a panoramic view of the queen that shows how some of the most influential writers of the period Spenser, Shakespeare, Heywood, and Sidney presented their queen in images that gave the 'rusty sword' of her peaceful mercy a double-edge. Elizabeth's mercy could be employed to celebrate the queen as a paragon of Christian princely virtue or criticize her judgment as a woman vulnerable to the passions. Villeponteaux's work is as complex as it is accessible, and it gives us a window into the fascinating political world where early modern literature and sovereignty intersect.' - Linda Shenk, Associate Professor of English, Iowa State University, USA, and author of Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (2009)

Mary Villeponteaux is Associate Professor of Literature at Georgia Southern University, USA.

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