Elizabethan Construction of Kingship

Abstract

This paper is about how the image of Elizabethan monarch was constructed as a sacred figure and how this was conducted by purely ideological means that extended to employ art and literature and how state ideological institutions were the source of power for the monarch.  It attempts to examine how art and literature were very much ideological and political whereby they were channelled to serve the intended purpose. It also sheds some light on a possible echoing of this image in a few contemporary Shakespearean and Marlovian plays.

Keywords: Elizabethan image of Kingship, Falstaff, Tamburlaine.