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Virtue Betray'd: women writing Anne Boleyn in the Long Eighteenth Century

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    Abstract

    The immediate posthumous reputation of Anne Boleyn was largely inscribed by men whose religious and political interests shaped their representations of her personality, relationship with Henry VIII, and the causes of her downfall. From the Catholic propaganda of Nicholas Sander to the Protestant hagiography of John Foxe, a vision of Boleyn as either monstrous or saintly emerged. However, as women started to write about the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, a more complex figure emerged, prefiguring contemporary representations of Anne Boleyn as a proto-feminist figure trapped and preyed upon in a rigidly patriarchal world. This chapter compares a number of accounts of Anne Boleyn’s life by women in the long eighteenth century: Madame d’Aulnoy, Sarah Fielding, and Mary Hays.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationRemembering Queens and Kings of Early Modern England and France
    Subtitle of host publicationreputation, reinterpretation, and reincarnation
    EditorsEstelle Paranque
    Place of PublicationCham
    PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
    Chapter4
    Pages51-71
    Number of pages21
    ISBN (Electronic)9783030223441
    ISBN (Print)9783030223434
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2019

    Publication series

    NameQueenship and Power
    PublisherPalgrave Macmillan

    Keywords

    • Anne Boleyn
    • historical fiction
    • eighteenth-century literature
    • women's history
    • Feminist history
    • early modern studies

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