ABSTRACT

Many observers of the Elizabethans have noted Elizabeth I’s self-presentation as mother to her people; her maternal rhetoric, no less than her occasionally visible breasts, applied motherly imagery to politics.3 But especially after the accession of James I in 1603, what Jonathan Crewe has termed the ‘repaternalization’ of culture and politics became a high priority for both king and court. Scholars including Janet Adelman, Peter Erickson, Coppélia Kahn, and Valerie Traub have claimed that The Tempest, along with Shakespeare’s other late romances, likewise participates in a conservative reestablishment of the father as the linchpin of society, burying the mother and validating patriarchy.4 Stuart repaternalization, though, often took a

I would like to thank Vimala Pasupathi, Elizabeth Richmond-Garza and Frank Whigham for their valuable suggestions on this essay.