Literature & Literary Studies

The Queen, or the Excellency of Her Sex

By John Ford

by Lisa Hopkins

Description

A scholarly, modern-spelling edition of a play by the Caroline dramatist John Ford, which has not seen much previous critical attention due to being accidentally omitted from the 1652 edition of his complete works. The introduction resituates the play in the Ford canon and explores how it spoke to audiences when it was first composed in the late 1620s, when it tapped into the contemporary fascination with the pathology of melancholy, and also when it was finally published in 1653. By this time the play's main plot about a sovereign who is threatened with execution would have recalled the beheading of Charles I four years earlier. The play can thus be seen as examining both psychology and politics.

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Reviews

In 1906 the German scholar Willy Bang published an edition of The Queen, or the excellency of her sex in which he claimed it as a previously unrecognised play by the Caroline dramatist John Ford. The attribution stuck, but the play has rarely been edited, performed, or analysed. This first Revels edition resituates The Queen in the Ford canon and explores how it spoke to audiences both when it was first composed in the late 1620s and when it was finally published in 1653, revealing it as a play about love, jealousy, melancholy, sovereignty, strangeness, and female rule. In the 1620s the heroine, who is queen of Aragon in her own right, might have seemed to echo both Katherine of Aragon and Elizabeth I; by 1653 its three separate scenes showing threatened (though aborted) executions and its discussion of monarchic power spoke of the recently executed Charles I and of his grandmother Mary Queen of Scots before him. Its pathologically misogynist hero is a more timeless figure whose reliance on flatterers and astrologers reveals deep-seated insecurities, while the subplot explores the uneasy relationship between love and sex. Presented here in modern spelling and with a detailed commentary and introduction, The Queen is revealed as a delicate blend of light and shade, comedy and tragedy, and verse and prose, which treats its main characters as both private and public figures.

Author Biography

Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date January 2025
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781526181145 / 1526181142
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatPrint PDF
  • Pages240
  • ReadershipGeneral/trade
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions216 X 138 mm
  • Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 5585
  • SeriesThe Revels Plays
  • Reference Code14585

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