A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play which is heavily imbued with the iconography of virginity which had been developed by and for Elizabeth I in the final phase of her reign. This chapter is concerned with several strategies of retrospection employed by William Shakespeare in Dream in order to critique Elizabeth and her iconography of virginity. The first example of this is the relationship between Dream and John Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage. The second strategy of retrospection is Shakespeare's use of the figure of Titania to reassess Elizabeth's status in the 1590s as perpetual virgin. The myth of Dido was one which had been used in Elizabethan entertainments as early as 1564. The use of the myth increased significantly, however, during the period 1579 to 1583 which coincided with the marriage negotiations between Elizabeth and Francis, Duke of Anjo.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the full range of the queen's extraordinary iconographical repertoire, focusing specifically on its development during Elizabeth I's forty-five-year reign. It looks at the diverse range of religious and quasi-religious images that were employed by Elizabeth. The book turns to one of the major enterprises of the Elizabethan era, the attempt to colonise the New World, during which the eastern seaboard of America was renamed Virginia in celebration of the Virgin Queen. It considers the development of the iconography of Elizabeth as a collaborative enterprise, through the examination of some of the most famous paintings of Elizabeth, paying particular attention to The Ditchley portrait, the Siena Sieve Portrait and the Rainbow Portrait. The book notes that a good deal has been written on the subject of Elizabeth's identification with Petrarch's Laura.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the rich and diverse figure of the earl by looking at a wealth of diverse visual and textual manifestations of Essex produced during the sixteenth century and up to the present day. It traces the critical assessment of the earl's decision to undertake a campaign in Ireland and considers the suggestion that his political enemies considered it politically expedient to have the earl personally embroiled in a foreign war. The book also describes the biographical commonplace that Essex identified himself with the chivalric code valued by Sir Philip Sidney and actively fashioned an identity for himself as Sidney's heir. It presents Essex's use of non-professional theatrical entertainments at court to promote an agenda he had shared with Sidney by campaigning for an increased level of English involvement in international affairs.