Dr Iolanda Plescia

Sapienza University of Rome

Iolandaplescia

The queen's word: Katherine in Henry VIII or All is True

ABSTRACT: This paper deals with a dramatic representation of the power of a queen’s word during the early years of the burning theological questions of the Reformation, looking in particular at the figure of Katherine of Aragon in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII. Katherine adopts a powerful stance in the face of the court she is tried by, refusing to speak and be spoken to in Latin to portray herself as an English queen. This paper will consider the play’s portrayal of the queen’s linguistic strategies and its construction of her devout and saintly persona, which raise complex issues of female agency and subjection in the context of religious strife that was still fresh in the minds of early modern audiences at the turn of the century.

 Iolanda Plescia is an Associate Professor of English language and translation at Sapienza University of Rome and the current director of the international MA programme in English and Anglo-American Studies.
Among her research interests are stylistics, the history of the English language, the history of Italian-English translation, literary translation, with special regard to the early modern age. She has translated several Shakespeare plays and is now editing and translating Henry VIII.

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