Munday, Anthony - Carole Levin (essay date 1991)
Carole Levin (essay date 1991)
SOURCE: Levin, Carole. “‘Lust being Lord, there is no trust in kings’: Passion, King John, and the Responsibilities of Kingship.” In Sexuality and Politics in Renaissance Drama, pp. 255-78. Lewiston, Penn.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991.
[In the following essay, Levin considers how The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington and The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington “explicate the ideology of uncontrolled sexuality as a metaphor for all manner of ill-rule.”]
One consistent political concern in late sixteenth-and early seventeenth-century England was what attributes a ruler needed to govern well. While the monarchy could represent a hope for stability, at a time not only of political disruption but frightening social/cultural changes in the family and personal relationships, fear of instability through ill-rule was intense. In a number of works in late sixteenth-and early...
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