A COURTIER'S LEGACY: CASTIGLIONE'S LITERARY INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETH ENGLAND

Abstract

This thesis examines the cultural influence of Baldesar Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier on European culture. Specifically, argue that the Courtier had a profound influence on Elizabethan England and its cultural development. I achieve this goal by examining various genres of literature during this period, and analyze Castiglione’s effect on the author’s writing and attitudes exhibited in the works. In examining a treatise, play, and epic romance, I surmise that various facets of Castiglione’s seminal work influenced these forms in unique. Each work I examined utilizes the Courtier in putting forth and strengthening their own views of how society should act. Thus, examining these works through a Castiglionian lens provide a microcosm of what other Elizabethans were thinking at this time. Whether they consciously knew it, the English population, especially the aristocracy, absorbed Castiglione’s ideologies and integrated them into a developing English society. This thesis provides a template for such an examination.