The Body of the Queen

Gender and Rule in the Courtly World, 1500-2000
1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-84545-121-9
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 697 g

How many “bodies” does a queen have? What is the significance of multiple “bodies”? How has the gendered body been constructed and perceived within the context of the European courts during the course of the past five centuries? These are some of the questions addressed in this anthology, a contribution to the ongoing debate provoked by Ernst H. Kantorowicz in his seminal work from 1957, The King’s Two Bodies. On the basis of both textual self-presentations and visual representations a gradual transformation of the queen appears: A sacred/providential figure in medieval and early modern period, an ideal bourgeois wife during the late-18th and 19th Centuries, and a star-like (re-) presentation of royalty during the past century. Twentieth-century mass media has produced the celebrity and film star queens personified by the contested and enigmatic Nefertiti of ancient Egypt, the mysterious Elizabeth (Sisi) of Austria, Grace Kelly as Queen of both Hollywood and Monaco and Romy Schneider as the invented Empress.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schulte, Regina

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Foreword

List of Contributors

Chapter 1. Introduction: Conceptual Approaches to the Queen’s Body

Regina Schulte

PART I: CONSTRUCTING THE BODY POLITIC

Chapter 2. How Two Ladies Steal a Crown: The Memoirs of Helene Kottannerin (1439–40) at the Court of Queen Elisabeth of Hungary (1409–42)

Horst Wenzel

Chapter 3. Elizabeth When a Princess: Early Self-representations in a Portrait and a Letter

Susan Frye

Chapter 4. Elizabeth through the Looking Glass: Picturing the Queen’s Two Bodies

Louis Montrose

Chapter 5. Royal Flesh, Gender and the Construction of Monarchy

Rachel Weil

PART II: TRANSGRESSING THE BODY NATURAL

Chapter 6. What the King Saw in the Belly of the Beast or How the Lion Got in the Queen: Allegories of Royal Procreation in the 1622 Royal Entry into Lyon

Abby E. Zanger

Chapter 7. Posterity and the Body of the Princess in German Court Funeral Books

Jill Bepler

Chapter 8. ‘Madame, Ma Chère Fille’ – ‘Dearest Child’: Letters from Imperial Mothers to Royal Daughters

Regina Schulte

PART III: QUEENS OF MODERNITY

Chapter 9. Queen Margherita (1851–1926): 'The Only Man in the House of Savoy'

Catherine Brice

Chapter 10. The Double Skin: Imperial Fashion in the Nineteenth Century

Juliane Vogel

Chapter 11. Theatrical Monarchy: The Making of Victoria, the Modern Family Queen

Bernd Weisbrod

Chapter 12. The Unmanly Emperor: Wilhelm II and the Fragility of the Royal Individual

Martin Kohlrausch

PART IV: VISUAL METAMORPHOSES

Chapter 13. The ‘Berlin’ Nefertiti Bust: Imperial Fantasies in Twentieth-Century German Archaeological Discourse

Claudia Breger

Chapter 14. Imagined Queens between Heaven and Hell: Representations of Grace Kelly and Romy Schneider

Alexis Schwarzenbach

Chapter 15. Queer Queen: Elizabeth I in Sally Potter’s Film Orlando

Katharina Sykora

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Schulte, Regina
Regina Schulte’s main fields of research are social and cultural history from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, especially the history of crime, gender and war. She taught Modern History and Gender History at Technical University Berlin, Bochum, Cornell University, and European University Institute Florence. Currently she holds a Chair of Modern and Contemporary History/Gender History at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Regina Schulte’s main fields of research are social and cultural history from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, especially the history of crime, gender and war. She taught Modern History and Gender History at Technical University Berlin, Bochum, Cornell University, and European University Institute Florence. Currently she holds a Chair of Modern and Contemporary History/Gender History at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.