ABSTRACT

Feminist criticism since the mid-1970s has contributed substantially to our understanding of female authorship and artistic production in Early Modern England, and thus to a critical reconfiguration of Shakespeare’s cultural milieu. The emphasis in much of this criticism, however, has been on the emergence of voices in non-aristocratic settings-on the experiences of those women who collectively represent a large segment of the English population. This essay samples different voices by considering the influence of Queen Anna of Denmark, Consort to James I, and her court on the production of Early Modern high culture.1 These voices may add usefully to the chorus both as a necessary complement to the important feminist work just described, and as a corrective to the traditional (and mostly male-authored) view of Anna herself as an insignificant cultural force.