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DEBRA BARRETT-GRAVES, ed. The Emblematic Queen: ExtraLiterary Representations of Early Modern Queenship. Queenship and Power Series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Pp. 234. ISBN 9781-137-30309-7. $85.00.
Other than depictions of Queen Elizabeth I in portraiture, a book-length study of early modern queens' authority in symbolism and material culture is relatively rare. Furthermore, some books compare female and male authority as they appear in the arts, but few focus only on the visual expression of feminine power. This is why The Emblematic Queen: Extra-Literary Representations of Early Modern Queenship, edited by Debra Barrett-Graves, is an exciting addition to the body of emblem studies. Hopefully this collection of essays brings us a step closer to recognizing the emblematic as a significant means of establishing and maintaining early modern female authority.
Clare McManus, in her monograph Women on the Renaissance Stage: Queen Anna of Denmark and Female Masques in the Stuart Court, 1590- 1619 (Manchester, 2002), stresses that women used nonverbal display to make plain their intention in public circles when they were excluded from the largely male-dominated world of verbal rhetoric (11). While the purpose behind nonverbal communication is not mentioned directly in The Emblematic Queen, the seven essays on early modern queens certainly provide enough evidence to support use of visual propaganda for queenship in imprese, portraits, jewelry, clothing , placards, masques, and decorative arts.
The essays focus on specific European queens from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The five queens discussed are Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus; Elizabeth I; Mary, Queen of Scots; Anne of Denmark; and the Spanish queen María Luisa de Orleáns. Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, both have two chapters devoted to them, providing extended commentary on the development of their images. These five queens in particular show how a symbolic identity could work for or against them, transforming their public image positively or negatively.
As Barrett-Graves mentions in the introduction, the essays collectively piece together "how queens negotiated the development and representation of their identities in arenas men typically exercised authority over- politics, religion, and culture-through their control, or lack thereof, of the various media available" (1). Barrett-Graves provides context for this creation of political and personal identity in her introduction with a loose definition of the emblem....