Anita Jarecsni

The Death of Elizabeth I: Analysis of Contemporary Prose Texts Anita Jarecsni

The death of the last Tudor monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, 24 March 1603, obviously inspired many of the contemporaries to record the last days or hours of the Virgin Queen. Although the after-ages tend to use the textual witnesses as primary sources to capture the event, some of them are worth approaching not only as mere narratives but as personal interpretations of the experience carrying subjective fingerprints of the authors. The work presents a comparative analysis of five different pre-selected prose texts written by contemporaries each standing relatively close to the court. The author of the book attempts to go beyond conclusions of secondary literature and investigates the interpretation of the death of the Queen from the individuals? point of view, taking their role and all their motives lying behind their works into account. This thought-provoking piece is primarily worthy of the attention of those who are generally attracted by the Elizabethan era and who would be interested in peeping in history from a more subjective point of view and seeing this important historical event through the eyes of contemporaries.