Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Though born a princess, she was declared illegitimate after her father took a liking to Jane Seymour and had her mother beheaded. When Elizabeth took the throne in 1599, she inherited a nation close to collapse, with its people deeply split over issues of religion. In order to provide stability for England, she chose not to marry, thus famously becoming “The Virgin Queen.” One might ask, in a time so burdened by political instability and religious controversy, what’s love go to do with it? From the frustrated desire of English love lyrics, to the sexiness to of the sonnet, to the bawdiness of Shakespeare’s plays, this course will focus on the erotics in Elizabethan literature.

We will read sonnet sequences by Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, dramas by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, excerpts from Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, and other poetry by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many more. And of course, we will read some writings by Good Queen Bess herself.