The Image of Royal Power in English Drama in the Second Half of the 16th Century

The proposed work is devoted to the study of the formation of the image of royal power and monarchy in England in the second half of the 16th century, based on the material of pre-Shakespearean English drama. The object of this study is the corpus of history plays of the second half of the 16th century, beginning with “King Johan” by John Bale, 1538, as it determined the future development of the whole genre of “history play”. T he subject of research is the image of the king and royal authority, which was created by English playwrights of the specified period in their plays. The purpose of this study is to identify the essence and main features of royal power and a king himself in the English drama of the second half of the XVI century, find out what features in the image of the king become the most important in the context of the reign of the last Tudors. 1. To identify and systematize the corpus of English plays of the second half of the 16th century, whose characters include monarchs: real or abstract. 2. To recreate the image of the monarch in the English drama of the second half of the XVI century. 3. To analyze the stylistic techniques that were used by the authors to broadcast the chosen aspects of the image of royal power. 4. To analyze the plots of the English drama of the second half of the XVI century, related to the Reformation, issues of politics and succession. The structure of the work is an introduction, two chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, the goals and objectives of the work are set, the characteristics of sources and historiography are given. In the first chapter, the issue of the formation of new aspects of the image of royal power associated with the Reformation is considered. The second chapter analyzes political plots relevant to the reign of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor and their reflection in the texts of the plays. In conclusion, the results of the work are summarized. The list of used sources and literature completes the work. The composition of this work also includes Appendix No. 1, which contains a chronologically formed list of sources, indicating the Russian translation of the name of the plays, their authors and the date of creation.