Elizabeth & Shakespeare

Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron......The poet was throughout his life greatly indebted to the patronage and support of royal and noble personages; his royal patrons were Queen Elizabeth and King James I, both of whom greatly loved the drama. The virgin queen devoted herself to the study of the ancient classical period; she also delighted in our own theatrical entertainments, and used her influence in the progress of the English drama, and fostered the inimitable genius of Shakespeare. In regard to her taste for the ancient stage, Sir Roger Naunton tells us "That the great Queen translated one of the tragedies of Euripides from the original Greek for her amusement." Shakespeare was ardently attracted to Elizabeth and her Court, and proved a faithful servant to his royal mistress. The first evidence of this is in his fine eulogy of the virgin queen in that most sweetly poetical early drama, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, as "a fair vestal throned by the west"; the play was probably produced for a special Court performance.....Shakespeare's patrons & other essays by Henry Brown