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Helen Hackett's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Helen Hackett recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Helen Hackett's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
Examining Elizabeth I's lasting impact on the Anglo-American historical imagination, John Watkins traces the development of Elizabeth I's iconic significance in the political and popular imagination of the seventeenth century. From powerful monarch to the perfect model of the tragic individual pitted against a hostile social order, Elizabeth's story informs contemporary debates. This study appeals to literary and cultural historians alike. less
Recommended by Helen Hackett, and 1 others.

Helen HackettI have chosen this one because, alongside the representation of Elizabeth in her own time, another huge and fascinating topic is the way she has been represented ever since. That is set in motion in the 17th century, the century after her death. John Watkins has written this wonderful study of it. (Source)

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2

Rewriting the Renaissance

The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe

Juxtaposing the insights of feminism with those of marxism, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction, this unique collection creates new common ground for women's studies and Renaissance studies. An outstanding array of scholars—literary critics, art critics, and historians—reexamines the role of women and their relations with men during the Renaissance. In the process, the contributors enrich the emerging languages of and about women, gender, and sexual difference.

Throughout, the essays focus on the structures of Renaissance patriarchy that organized power relations both in the state...
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Recommended by Helen Hackett, and 1 others.

Helen HackettThis is an essay collection from the mid 1980s and it exemplifies the movement known as new historicism, which was a new development which tried to bring together history and literary criticism in a new dynamic way, to show the way that literature is situated in history and history is made up of texts and always open to interpretation. (Source)

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3

Elizabeth I

Translations, 1544-1589

England’s Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Tudor, had a reputation for proficiency in foreign languages, repeatedly demonstrated in multilingual exchanges with foreign emissaries at court and in the extemporized Latin she spoke on formal visits to Cambridge and Oxford. But the supreme proof of her mastery of other tongues is the sizable body of translations she made over the course of her lifetime. This two-volume set is the first complete collection of Elizabeth’s translations from and into Latin, French, and Italian.

Presenting original and modernized spellings in a facing-page format,...
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Recommended by Helen Hackett, and 1 others.

Helen HackettYes, I wanted to give an example of some of her own writing because that is where we get closest to feeling that we know her and we get an insight into her own mind and attitude and ideas. I have been massively assisted in that because in the last ten years the University of Chicago has been publishing a series of volumes of Elizabeth’s collected works. From these you get a sense of her breadth... (Source)

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4

The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene was the first epic in English and one of the most influential poems in the language for later poets from Milton to Tennyson. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, Spenser brilliantly united medieval romance and renaissance epic to expound the glory of the Virgin Queen. The poem recounts the quests of knights including Sir Guyon, Knight of Constance, who resists temptation, and Artegall, Knight of Justice, whose story alludes to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
Composed as an overt moral and political allegory, The Faerie Queene, with its dramatic...
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Recommended by Helen Hackett, and 1 others.

Helen HackettI wanted to include an example of literature from Elizabeth’s reign because she inspired a fantastic richness and breadth of poetry, with lots of writers competing with each other to praise her in ever more elaborate ways. Probably the most powerful example of that is Spenser’s Faerie Queene which is a huge epic romance published in two parts in the 1590s. (Source)

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5
This lavishly illustrated book ties in with a major international exhibition opening at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on 1 May 2003. Timed to commemorate the 400th anniversary since the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, and sponsored by Morgan Stanley, the exhibition brings together a wealth of paintings, manuscripts, fine art objects and personal effects which illuminate Elizabeth's fascinating history. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich and spent her first months at Greenwich Palace, on the site of what is now a World Heritage Site, Maritime Greenwich. The book, containing... more
Recommended by Helen Hackett, and 1 others.

Helen HackettI chose this one because it is a catalogue of an excellent exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in 2003. That was one of a whole lot of events and publications for the 400-year anniversary of Elizabeth’s death in 1603. This volume is particularly interesting because it is a really rich, full, broad catalogue where they tried to present some unusual things that people haven’t seen before,... (Source)

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