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Jane Shore's Political Identity in Thomas Heywood's Edward IV
- SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 60, Number 2, Spring 2020
- pp. 299-322
- 10.1353/sel.2020.0013
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This article argues that Jane Shore, Edward IV's mistress in Thomas Heywood's history play, The First and Second Parts of King Edward IV, becomes a figure of chronical history through the way her speech acts of petitions and pardons are read as politically efficacious. In separating her performative speech from her identity as a woman, commoner, and mistress, Jane transcends both her moral and social status in ways not seen in the ballad or dramatic traditions that predate Heywood's play. Instead, Jane's words achieve a political authority even beyond those of the king, effacing her former status and recrafting—and perhaps limiting—her identity in the process.