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Queen Victoria, Empire, and Excess Author(s): Adrienne Auslander Munich Source: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 6, No. 2, Woman and Nation (Autumn, 1987), pp. 265-281 Published by: University of Tulsa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/464272 . Accessed: 01/05/2011 04:53
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Queen Victoria, Empire,and Excess

Adrienne AuslanderMunich at StateUniversity New York StonyBrook of

It was a Victorian commonplace to observe that the Queen ruled her nation as a motherand her householdas a monarch.Rulingis mixed up, the joke suggests;Victoria'sidea of rule is backwards.Supposedlythe Queen should rule her kingdom as a monarch and her household as a mother. Putting the saying right by reversingthe reversal, however,reveals the difficultythat the witticism disguised-the problemof a model, a figure,an adequatesymbolof this Queen'srule. The sayingdemonstratesa confusion that lies at the heartof the Victorian culture's conceptualizingof Victoriaas Queen, suggestingthat once one linked the Queen'smaternalrole to her monarchicalrole, a boundaryin the culturalimaginationwas transgressed. Seeing an inherent contradictionbetween the function of mother and the function of monarch, the joke finds ruling as a mother sufficientlyanomalous to be obviouslyfunny.The joke revealsthe gap in representability that Victoria's presenceon the throne created.What wouldruling"asa monarch" mean for this particularwoman? The witticism unwitticized reveals the culturalparadoxof Queen Victoria'sspecifickind of monarchy-the apparent contradictionof a devotedwife, prolificmother,and extravagant widow who is also Queen of an Empireupon which the sun never sets. The problem, so that saying suggests, is that Victoria as mother and monarchleadsto confusion:somethingappears be wrongat the top of the to pyramidof authority.Although an idealizedmother, a madonna, is vested with great spiritualauthority,unvirginal mothers, unlike fathers, are less imaginableas representing temporalmonarchy;maternalmonarchyseems absurd.By being so confoundinglyphysical and fecund, Victoria'sfemale body does not lend itselfto translationas a madonna,to assimilationinto a personification,such as Britannia,or to venerationas a mortal sage.1 The maternalbody as representing monarchicalauthorityis particularly problematicfor Victorian times, with its publiclyarticulatedconception of Cloisteredfrompublic life, maternal separategenderedspheresof authority. authority derives from utterly different imperatives, such as the imperiousnessof infantneeds, which might appear primitivewhen associatedwith political matters.The Queen'smaternalbodybelongedto the privatesphere while her sovereign bodybelongedto the public sphere.2The relationof the 265

two spheres to Victorian ideals of cultural health places the Queen as a potentially diseasedbisector of lines of national authority,conventionally for male. Health as a nation, accordingto Charles Kingsley, example, was embodied in the regimensof manly Christianity, "bodiesuntainted,"in his phrase,"byhereditaryeffeminacy."3 that no man would wish to own: Kingsleyused the term of opprobrium effeminacy.Effeminacyin a man implies a physical weaknessusually atfor tributedto women whose energiesare required reproductionand therefore are not availablefor intellectualgrowthor full psychologicalmaturity.4 The term "effeminate" belongs to a sex/gendersystem that polices boundaries of behaviorwith the weaponsof ridicule and shame. In that system, but femininity is the counterpartand essential complement of masculinity, the negative male trait of effeminacy contrasts with a negative female characteristicthat has no English word. Let us call that quality in women that preventsby mockerythe unimpededcrossingof boundariesof gender behavior "emmanlinacy."5 Emmanlinacy is precisely that authoritative of qualityrequired a female monarch,while no good womanwouldwant to
own it.

To counteract the lack that is signifiedby no linguistic marker, age the an respondswith superfluity, excess of representation,as if culturalproduction were filling the gap left by a missing term, a concept, a figure.I shall that became promiprovideexamplesof Victorian excess of representation nent as Victoria'sreign lengthened and the Queen'sbody thickened. The to absoluteconnection of the representations the Queen arespeculativeand suggestive.Rather than describingVictorian topical allegory,I arguethat late Victorian representations queens possessan addedvalence of meanof of ing with Victoriaon the throne. Victorian representations excessiveand passionate female monarchs carry with them a significance that is not universalbut is particular the historicalmoment. I will limit my examples to to the periodclose to the Golden Jubileein 1887, juxtaposingthe anomaly of maternalqueenshipas Victoriaherselfcommentedon it with representations of queens in the late Victorian period.

that The Queen herselfwasawareof a dilemmaof representability yearsof reign, numbersof children, domestic and foreignintriguedid not solve but only seemed to exacerbate. The cumulative effect of the years increased rather than decreasedthe differencesbetween the Queen's domestic and monarchical bodies. First, with the marriagesof her children, Victoria's familymultipliedgeometrically, threateningwith its royalbreadthto fulfilla 266

The kingdom Malthusianvision of a micro-nationof the Queen'sprogeny. was inundated with photographsof the Queen's family, its sweetest babe cradledin the armsof Her Majesty, if no infant, a standingchild leaning or, on the Queen'slap. Victoria frequentlysat at the center of a multitude,her descendantssurrounding origin of their generation. Second, Victoria's the body itself became a distortion of maternalform, beyond the possibilityof caricature.She wasno longer thin; she wasveryshort;she refusedto weara crown.The trappingsof royaltywerenot discernibleon her person,nor was her particularform assimilable to conventional female personifications, where some measureof authoritycould be derived. Victoria articulatedin her writingas well as in her posed familypictures some of the contradictionsof representingher reign, reflecting as well as constituting the conflict of herselfas ruler.She presentedher rule paradoxically,replicatingthe languageof femininity,virtuallyerasingthe possibility In of usingher physicalbody to represent authority. 1852, aftershe had been a monarchfor fifteen yearsshe stated, "Iam everyday more convinced that we women,if we are to be good women, feminineand amiable and domestic, aresnot fittedto reign."6 Victoria'sstatementarticulatesthe gap in representation I have been describing. The speakerseems to situate herself in a position of authority that has been accumulating for every day of the considerable days of her reign. At the same time, that very authority displacesthe makerof the statement. Is Queen Victoria not fitted to reign, or is she not a good woman?Her significantqualification,"ifwe are to be good women,"opens the possibility of a reigningwomanas not feminine, amiable,or domestic.The concept of a masculine,unamiable,and political (emmanlinate)female ruleris exploited in some late Victorian literature will eventuallyexamine.But the qualificaI tion of the Queen's own statement, which derives its authorityfrom her experience as monarch, createsno groundfor Victoria as wife to stand on. While Victoria Reginaopens the possibility,at least on the linguistic level, of not being a good woman, wereshe to advocatethat possibilityin life, she would not only violate her first vow to her people in which she humbly considered herself qualifiedfor queenship, but she would also violate her vows.7In additionto the contradictionsposedby and implicit in a marriage maternalmonarch is the contradictionposed by a monarch who is also a wife. Sixteen yearsafter her marriagethe paradoxof matronlyauthorityhad not been solved. Recognized in England only as Prince Albert of SaxeCoburg and Gotha, the Queen's husbandhad no official title. The reluctance to give him one seemed a way to avoidParliamentary recognition of Victoria'sanomalousposition as sovereign-signaled by the singularof the What to call a foreignmale personwho wasthe connubial word"monarch." 267

but The Queen consideredsomething superior national inferiorof the ruler? approachingan oligarchy by suggesting "King Consort" but, above all, wishedforAlbert to be named.At the time of her oldestdaughter's marriage, dated May 1856: she wrote a memorandum, in It is a strange omission ourConstitution whilethe wifeof a Kinghas that in her rank dignity therealm and after husband to thehighest assigned herby is of Thisis the the law, husband a Queenregnant entirely ignored the law. by more asa has and such extraordinary, husband in thiscountry particular rights suchgreat over just power his wife,andasthe Queenis married as anyother as woman andswears obeyherlordandmaster, such,whilebylawhe has to is, This is a strange no rankor defined position. anomaly....8 The anomaly of Victoria'sreign, as she herselfdefines it, is groundedin For conventions of authority. a woman,that authorityis located in her social function as a wife, mother,eventuallywidow.In actuality,Queen Victoria foundthe mechanicsof motherhoodan impositionupon her bodywhile she was not averseto the mechanics of procreation.She presentedherselfnot only as devotedbut as passionatelydevotedto her husband.She allowedthe the idea of female desire.Furthermore, apparenthealth of her childrenand their survival,not to say,hersurvival,confoundedstatistics. One possible was solution to the dilemmaof self-representation to exploit her authorityas mother, which in any case she could not avoid. Vetting her children's speecheson herbehalfduringherfirstJubileecelebrations,Victoriawroteto the Royal SecretarySir Henry Ponsonby: of The Queenapproves theseanswers, always but wishesthe words dear 'my If Not but Mother' be inserted. only on this occasion, always. Sir Henry to
thinks that it could come in any other place better, he can alter it. But the

never omitted be whenherchildren her. it Queenwishes should represent (30 April1887,LJ,p. 303) To insist upon obeisanceto monarchyas homage to a mother,however, to is invite the sense of absurdityreflectedin the joke with which I began my speculations about the relationship of Victoria to her representationas monarch. Victoria confoundsthe ideologyof her eponymousera. How to represent monarchicalauthoritywithoutseemingeffeminateas a nation?And how to infantile?As present a maternalQueen without appearingembarrassingly the nation nearsthe firstJubilee,we discovera fragmentationof symbolizain tion, representations which all possibilitiesareentertained.Ratherthan a lack of representation,the result of the paradoxof maternalmonarchyis
268

nonsense, hyperbole: the representation of excess or the excess of representation.

ii

My first example, from Lewis Carroll, is of hyperbole by mathematics. of Multiplyingthe absurdity Queenlinessby three, Carrollpresentsa conversation between three "queens"-the Red Queen, the White Queen, and the the newly crowned Queen Alice-in Through Looking-Glass (1872). Their conversationrevealsthat not one of them is capableof emmanlinacy. They areproperlyqueens, incapableof rationality. Alice makesherselfa queen by placing a golden crownon her head. The moreexperiencedqueensexamine her for her qualifications: "Whatdo you mean by 'Ifyou reallyare a Queen'? What right have you to call yourselfso?Youcan't be a Queen, you know,till What followstransfers physical the you'vepassedthe properexamination."9 body to the abstractrealm of math. The message is that no queen, even triplicated,can passthe examination;they do not have the rightphysicalor mental equipment.Or, in the termsof Carroll's world,Queen Alice passes the queen exam by entering into nonsensical discourse,although she gets points taken off for being too awareof ridiculousness. In addition to the hyperbole of three queens, I think one can discern allusions to Dodgson'smonarch in the dialogue. "The Queen gasped and shuther eyes.'Ican do Addition,'she said,'ifyougive me time--but I can't do Substraction,underany circumstances!"' 191). Likethe White Queen (p. transferredto the biological realm, Victoria made astonishing additions with time, and more astonishinglyfor the childbirthstatisticsof the period there were no subtractions.Carroll jokes about Royal pronouncements: "whenyou'veonce said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences"(p. 194); about literacy:"I'lltell you a secret,"whispersthe White Queen, "I can read wordsof one letter! Isn't thatgrand?" 192). Hyper(p. bolicallyreducingthe thousandsof lettersVictoriawrote,Carrollcomments on the rarityof the queenly use of "I."10 also comments on queenly He diplomacy:"Queensnever make bargains" 193); and on queenly intru(p. siveness:"'Iwish Queens never askedquestions,'Alice thought to herself" (P. 192). the Glassrefersto the Queen'sthickeningbody Moreover, Through Looking and her imperviousnessto the discomfortssufferedby those entering her freezingdomiciles: a "...we hadsuch thunderstorm Tuesday-I meanoneof thelastset last of Tuesdays, know." you 269

"In "there's onedayat a she Alicewaspuzzled. ourcountry," remarked, only time." a we TheRedQueensaid"That'spoorthinwayof doingthings.Nowhere, in mostlyhavedaysandnightstwo or threeat a time, and sometimes the we winter takeasmanyas fivenightstogether--for warmth, know." you to Alice ventured ask. "Are nightswarmer one night,then?" five than of "Five timesaswarm, course." be "But should fivetimesas cold,by the samerule--." they timesas warm,andfive timesas so!" "Just criedthe Red Queen."Five (pp. cold--just asI'mfivetimesasrichasyouare,andfivetimesasclever!" 194-95). Neither poor nor thin, Queen Victoria could affordto impose her matheon matics and body temperature her company.Her body was mysteriously able to tolerate temperatures much colder than most people, so it might be assumedthat she was warmerthan most.11 The Queen's"I," well-published the secretof her body,revealsitself in the contradictionand impartsan added(even loaded)resonanceto representations in late Victorian literatureand art of ruling women who encompass Alice booksareonly contradictionsin theirrule. LewisCarroll's extravagant one example of Victorian representationsof ruling women as excessive: large, nonsensical, but potentially violent and ultimately destructive
figures.12

Although they are not ultimately destructive, the ruling women in Gilbert and Sullivan'sSavoy Operas figure a topsy-turvyworld, ruled by capriciouslogic, similar to Carroll's.In addition, the world of the operas childlikeby includinga stock femalecharacterwho is rendersthe characters In of older,passionate,and wieldssome authority.13 keepingwith a paradigm as authorityas maternal,the political body couldbe figured childish, subject to authoritativeruleby a woman. Gilbert and Sullivan'sSavoyoperasfigure olderwomen the political worldas the nurseryworld,with rashbut powerful and male officialswho sufferfromchildish worries,such as bad dreams,fear of the darkor of fighting("Whenthe foeman bearshis steel, we uncomfortable feel"),or fearof exercisingtraditionalmale authority("whenconstabuAn lary duty'sto be done.. .The policeman'slot is not a happy one").14 entireproductionis launchedon HerMajesty's Ship, Pinafore,the uniformof childhood. There is a suggestionin the SavoyOperasthat the dame figureis raging with sexual appetite and has an unseemly regardfor attractivemen, not alwaysof a properrank or station in life.15The Queen of the Fairiesin lolanthe (1882), for example, is irresistiblyattracted to "manly beauty" FirstGrenadierGuards,a (p. 239) embodiedin PrivateWillis, B Company, mere sentry: 270

Nowhereis a manwhose attributes simply are Thatmanhas physical godlike. a mostextraordinary uponme.IfI yielded a natural I effect to impulse, should falldownandworship man.(p. 239) that Victoriarespondedmost favorably her ministerswho werecourtlyto herto Melbourneat first and later, more flamboyantly, Disraeli. But more to the point of Gilbert'sFairyQueen, Victoria showed great admirationfor the physical bodies of two servants, one John Brown, a muscularScots gillie about whom there raged rumorsof a sexual liaison.16The second, Abdul Karim, a young Indian in his twenties in the 1880s when he became a service fromwaiterto a memberof the Royal favorite,had risen in Victoria's Household.Karimwasgrantedan apartmentat OsborneHouse,the Queen's residence in the Isle of Wight, and in responseto public objections to his elevation, the Queen offeredhim an additionalresidence at Balmoralas a salveforhis injuredpride.17 LikeVictoria, the Queen of the Fairiesworships a mere Private, elevating him by her admirationto FairyConsort.18 KatishafromTheMikado for (1885) parodiesa woman"witha caricature a face,"trueforVictoria whose face appearedin cartoonsall overthe world.19 is to Katisha,whose near-royalty establishedby being daughter-in-law-elect the Mikado, is given to excessive fits of mourning: Alone, andyet alive!Oh sepulchre! Mysoulis stillmybody's prisoner! Remotethe peacethatDeathalonecan giveto Mydoom,to wait!mypunishment, live! (p. 366) Katishaalso expressesa loneliness, the loss of a permanentcompanionthat was a leitmotif in Victoria'sreign, even prior to the death of the Prince Consort, but wasfinallyconsolidatedin her dedicationto mourninghis loss: The hourof gladness Is deadandgone In silentsadness I live alone! The hopeI cherished All lifeless lies, And all hasperished Savelove,whichnever dies! (p. 342) The experienceof being alone datesfromthe firstday of Victoria's reign:she receivedLordMelbourne"quiteALONE as I shall alwaysdo all my Minis271

ters,"and, speakingof her firstPrivyCouncil, she noted, "Iwent in of course At quite alone."20 first a declaration of independence from her mother's influence, Victoria'ssense of aloneness turned into eternal mourningwith the death of Albert. In the midst of the Jubileecelebrationat Westminster Abbey,Victoria meticulouslyenumeratedher family in her journalwith a sober accuracythat is the earnest counterpartof the manic census of the "Rulerof the Queen'sNavee"from H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), who cites the authorityof his large female family of sisters, cousins, and aunts (p. 74). Surroundedby "sons, sons-in-law,grandsons.. .and grandsons-in-law... Daughters, daughters-in-law... granddaughters,and granddaughters-innot law," to mention the clergy,the enormouscrowdsfrom the Palace, the ChelseaPensioners, people sittingon houses,the Queen describedherself:"I sat alone..." (LJ,p. 305). In keepingwith the excess of the mode I am describingand focusingon the mixing up of familyand political life, the SavoyOperasend not with one or two marriages but, once the threatening older woman is pacified, with mass marriages. In 1887, the year of the Queen'sfirstJubilee, Sir Henry Rider Haggard a published She:A Historyof Adventure, tale that might be consideredan ominous literarymonument to Victoria. That the Queen'sepic mourning into an excess not consciouslycomic is shownby this could be transformed strange fantasy novel about a queen with immense power.This power is demonstratedby Queen Ayesha'stitle, She, the feminine pronoun being sufficientto evoke the eternally feminine-a secret empire where women This sovereignruler dominate and exercise their immense sexual desires.21 transcendstime. Her reignhas extendedfor two thousandyears,a revealing fantasyof Haggardwho had never known another monarch than Victoria of and who wasonly six yearsold when PrinceAlbert died. He waswell aware her extendedtwenty-five periodof mourningand of the constantrumors year of of imminentabdication.Using the figuration excess,Ayeshaexplainsthat she has overcome the "Change, that ye call death" in order to await the rebirth of her dead lover. She thus mourns beyond the bounds of human is alwaysin italics, in full capability.Ayesha's title, She-who-must-be-obeyed, (possible unconscious) homage to Victoria's favorite typeface. The title motherwho lays down the (domestic)law and evokesboth an authoritarian the passionatelywillfulnatureof the monarch.Shetestifiesto the excessesof figurationinspiredby the anomalousfigureof authority. My last example of hyperbolicmultiplication is the JubileeMonument itself, a statue of, among other figures,the Queen'sbody.The sculptor,Sir Albert Gilbert (who was also the sculptor of Eros in Piccadilly Circus), the represented Queen as a maternalbodyby multiplicationand extravagant he Gilbert'simagecouldnot be moreexplicitlymaternal; usedhis figuration. 272

own mother as well as photographsof Victoria as models: "One was the Queen of my country-the other Queen of my heart."22 Gilbert'smother ruled his emotional life, he reveals,in the same way as he experiencedhis monarch'srule. He conflated what I believe occurs in many Victorians' internalizationof the Queen's authority.23 Gilbert'ssymbolic equation, In the witticism is properlyrevealed:Victoria ruledher nation and her household as a mother. In his original design Gilbert seated the Queen on a plain throne. He solvedthe problemof her shortdumpybodyby surrounding with yardsand it of bronzedraperies. Her invisible feet restupon a huge plumpcushion yards with long elaboratefringe. On her head is a small crown. She holds the scepter and orb. The figure of the queen, enhanced by her draperies, dominatesthe throne. But Gilbertfoundhis representation inadequate,and so he multiplied the symbols (Figure1). On the orb he placed a winged Victory, as if the traditional symbols requiredsupplementingin order to convey queenly authority (Figure 2). A personification of triumph, the willowy gracefulfemale is also an alter ego of the Queen, as their echoing names suggest. Victory seems almost to be an appendage of Victoria, supplyingan anatomical lack, an allegoricalcounterpartto the linguistic "emmanlinate." The disparityin scale between the two female figuresis so great that it increasesthe impressionof queenly massiveness.Erect, wings unfurled,waving a palm, Victory hovers over Victoria'scapacious lap. To furthermultiplythe symbolsof authority, Gilbert hung aboveVictoria's head another crown, more vast and elaborate, outlandishlydecorated with yet tendrilsand lilies trailingin space (Figure The lilies areopened and lush, 3). a fecund counterpartto Mary's virginal flowers. The simplethrone becamemassiveand sprouted decoration.On the back stands a heavily drapedBritanniawho wears a helmet with a tall plume (Figure4)*Britanniaholds in her armsa Tudorwarship,The RoyalHarry. Over her head hangs a canopysurmounted three immensefeathers.The by golden plumes are a counterpartof the immense overscaledcrownhanging over Victoria's head. Britannia, the personification of the land, stands spatiallyopposite the seated Queen, in back of her symbolicallyas well as Active, wearinga helmet as opposedto a crown,she rulesthe waves, actually. symbolized the smallship she cradlesin her arms.EvenBritanniadoes not by entirelyescapesome maternalsymbolism,if only as a subtext.Both the ship's name and its positioning are interesting in the context of a matemrnalized The ship is suggestiveof maternity-its hold, traditionallylikened authority. to a uterusas farback as Virgil.Gilberthas thus importeda vaguesuggestion of the maternalfigureon the back side of the monument. As a personification, an abstraction,Britanniacan bear the suggestionof angelic matemrnity 273

Figure 1. JubileeMemorialto Queen Victoria, 1887, Hall of Winchester Castle, Winchester,by AlfredGilbert. Reprintedby kind permissionof the ConwayLibrary, CourtauldInstitute of Art, London. 274

Figure 2. Close view of the JubileeMemorial,showing the position of Victory in relationto Victoria. Reprintedby kind permissionof the ConwayLibrary, Courtauld Institute of Art, London. 275

Memorial. Figure3. Replica of the second crown, Jubilee Reprintedby kind permission of the Conway Library, CourtauldInstitute of Art, London. 276

Memorial QueenVictoria, to Figure4. Jubilee showingBritanniaand the three feathers over her head in a similarrelation to the figureas the second crown over Victoria's head. Reprintedby kind permissionof the Conway Library, CourtauldInstitute of Art, London. 277

as opposedto Victoria'smore problematicmotherhood,subjectas it was to the vicissitudesof life. In addition to Britannia,there are two more sets of allegoricalfiguresin two differentscales-three scales of allegory in all. Above the Queen on either side are Science and History; in canopied niches are Faith, Hope, Charity, and Law. Calling the portrait of Queen Victoria "a mixture of extreme realism and gross exaggeration," Richard Dorment attributesthe statue's"glacialdignity and commanding presence"to its "huge proportions." Victoria'stemporal authoritybecomes believable by a "seductive" illusion;the vieweris convinced that this massivefiguremustbe a Queen by her wearingthe Koh-i-noordiamond, for example, and by the allegorical figuresthat express "Queen Victoria'sposition and virtues.""The artist convinces us that this giantess is the Queen by the device of seducing the viewer into admiringthe gorgeoustexturedrobes of state, the profusionof realistic details...."24 Since he accepts the "tiny"Queen's own body as insufficientto be commanding, Dorment sees that the sculptor vests her authorityin optical magnificationand figuralmultiplication. In differentways, these examplesof regal representationexpressexcess. misQueen Victoria-mother of nine children, wife, widow,grandmother, tress of John Brown and admirerof beautiful men, not a virgin25-was representedas contradiction, nonsense, massiveness.She created in her subjects a heightened sense of the absurd.Mother of her peoples, but "as tough as a bone, / With a will of her own"(p. 355), like Katisha,who inspired people to travel continents to view her left elbow, Victoria drew masses wherevershe allowed people to view her. "As for my circulation, it is the largestin the world"(p. 360), Katishaboasts. Queen Victoria'sbody,loved for yet ridiculed,became a representation the excess of a body politic with the largestcirculation in the world.

NOTES

I wouldlike to thankthe editor, Nina Auerbach, hergenerous for comments and and as who helpedlocatethe suggestions well as Betty Muirden SusanCasteras illustrations.
1

in and The in MarinaWarner, Monuments Maidens: Allegory Female Form(New

York: the between Atheneum, 1985), explores lackofresemblance allegories (personfemale thequalities and that ascribed realwomen. to For ifications) aretraditionally herhistory Britannia nationalsymbol, pp. 45-50.See alsoJulia of as see Kristeva,
in "StabatMater," The FemaleBodyin Western Culture,ed. Susan Rubin Suleiman

278

(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1986), pp. 99-101, on the paradox of the maternalVirgin and the "primary narcissism" that repudiatescarnal maternity. 2 For an extended discussion of the paradoxes of Victorian gender ideology, and particularlyas it applies to motherly angels, see Eric Trudgill,Madonnas Magdalens:The Origins Development Victorian and SexualAttitudes Holmes of (New York: & Meier,1976). Victoria'stemperament not sufficiently was angelic to be assimilated into the stereotypeof the madonna. or 3 Hypatia, New FoesWithan Old Face,vol. IX in The Lifeand Works Charles of Kingsley,19 vols. (New York:Macmillan& Co., 1902), p. xiii. 4 Jill Conway,"Stereotypes Femininity in a Theory of Sexual Evolution,"in of Sufferand Be Still:Womenin the Victorian Age, ed. MarthaVicinus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), pp. 140-41. Conway discussesHerbert Spencer's adaptationof evolutionarytheory to give a biological basis to female stereotypes. 5 "Mannish" another possibility, is but that has as counterpart"womanish," not Reader: A quite the same quality as effeminate. Judith Fetterley,in The Resisting Feminist to Fiction Approach American (Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,1978), to become p. xx, suggests"immasculate" denote the processwherebywomen readers male readers identifyingwith the powerpolitics of the literature."Unfeminine" is by also possible, but it does not imply,like "emmanlinate" does, that the unfeminine like quality is necessarily male characteristics. Although I wouldpropose"emmanlinate"as an antonymof"effeminate," do so ultimatelyto question the suppositions I and the valuesthat underlietypologiesof gender,with a view to exposingsuch rigid categoriesas foolish. 6 RaymondMortimer, Leaves (New Introduction,Queen Victoria: froma Journal York: Straus& Cudahy,1961), p. 13. Farrar, 7 She wrote that vow in her Journalthe day she became queen: "Since it has pleasedProvidenceto place me in this station, I shall do my utmostto fulfilmy duty towardsmy country;I am veryyoung,and perhapsin many,though not in all things, inexperienced,but I am sure, that very few have more real good will and more real desireto do what is fit and rightthan I have."TheGirlhood QueenVictoria, Lord ed. of Esher(London:John Murray, 1912), I, 195-96. 8 QueenVictoria Her Letters in andJournals, ChristopherHibbert (New York: ed. Viking, 1985), p. 152. Subsequentreferenceswill be cited in the text as LJ. the 9 LewisCarroll,Through Looking-Glass WhatAliceFound and There(NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 187. Subsequentreferenceswill be cited parenthetically in the text. 10Stanley Weintraubin Victoria: Intimate An (New York:E.P.Dutton, Biography wereextremelyrare: 1987)notes that exchangesin writingin which Victoriaused"I" "Only personal matters, on very rare occasions, could elicit a royal first-personsingularpronounfrom the Queen"(p. 431). focuseson details of Victoria'sprivatelife and mentions frequently l Weintraub the Queen'sinsistence on temperatures cold for guests.He suggeststhat perhaps too the Queen's higher body temperatureexplains her tolerance for cold, but the that the Queen'stemperature different was perception,even fantasy, providesa fertile field for her subjects'own fantasiesabout the nature of the Queen'sbody. 279

12 The most familiarof Carroll's destructivequeens is, of course, the Queen of HeartsfromAlicein Wonderland, whose idea of rulingis embodiedin her echoing and terrifyingrefrain,"Offwith his head!" 13 For a detailed argumentthat describesGilbert'sadaptationsof dame figures from the (originallytransvestite)tradition to women whose significanceis directly the relevantto Queen Victoria, see Adrienne AuslanderMunich,"Capture Heartof a Queen: Gilbert and Sullivan's Rites of Conquest," The CentennialReview,28 (1984), 2344. 14 W. S. Gilbert and ArthurSullivan, Pirates or ofPenzance TheSlaveof Duty, The SavoyOperas(London:Macmillan, 1926), Act II, pp. 126, 140. Subsequentreferences to all operasarefromthis edition and will be cited parentheticallyin the text. 15 Jane Stedman, in "FromDame to Woman: W. S. Gilbert and Theatrical Victorian Studies,4 (1970), 27-46, traces the tradition of the dame Transvestism," figurebut excusesGilbert in part because the exigencies of the plot seem to permit derogatorycomments about the middle-agedwoman. Stedman does not recognize For the sadismof the characterization. a culturalanalysisof the powerrelationsof on and in transvestite rituals,see Natalie ZemonDavis,"Woman Top," Society Culture EarlyModernFrance(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1975). 16 Queen Victoria was more deeply appreciative both the physicalbeauty and of the authoritative protectivenessof Mr.Brownthan seemedproperto her Household. Rumorsof their sexual relationshipadded to the fantasyof the Queen's insatiable sexual appetites and supportmy hypothesis that the models of ruling women are of foundedon the imperatives their sexualbeings. Fora thoroughexaminationof the relationship of Queen Victoria and John Brown, see Tom Cullen, The Empress Brown:The TrueStoryof a Victorian Scandal (Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1969). The fantasyof unbridledsexualityis embodiedin a rumorreportedby ElizabethLongford in Victoria,R. I. (New York:Harper& Row, 1973) that Victoria "like the female insatiableas her spider.. devoured mate, PrinceAlbert, and a few yearsafterwards, John Brown,from the Highlands" 51). ever,took anothermore vigorouspartner, (p.

17 Weintraub, pp. 508-09.

as close relationshipto men wasfigured domestic,whetherthose men Victoria's wereolder or younger,in governmentor in her Household.In 1839 she washissed at when she accompanied the Prime Minister to Ascot. "Mrs. as "Mrs.Melbourne" coined by William Morris. was Brown" a common epithet as was "Empress Brown," See Cullen, p. 7. 19 On 4 September 1891 The Mikadowas performedat Balmoral,and Victoria and amusingtopical wrote in her journal:". .. though there are manywitty remarks ed. Life allusions,the storyis rathersilly." at theCourtof QueenVictoria, BarrySt-John Nevill (Salem, New Hampshire:Salem House, 1984), p. 149. It is doubtfulthat the Queen noted allusionsto herself in the mourningKatisha. 20 Quoted in Cecil Woodham-Smith, to Fromherbirth thedeathof QueenVictoria: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 141. the PrinceConsort(New York: 21 Nina Auerbach, in Womanand the Demon: The Life of a VictorianMyth absolute HarvardUniversityPress, 1982), calls Ayesha"asuprahuman (Cambridge: Victoria..." (p. 37). monarch, a galvanizedand transfigured
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22 Richard Dorment, AlfredGilbert(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985),

p. 72. 23 For psychological theories about the negative power of such an imago, see (Berkeley: Universityof California Nancy Chodorow,The Reproduction Mothering of SexualArrangeand Press, 1978); Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid the Minotaur: mentsandHumanMalaise(New York: Harper,1976); and the object relationstheory of Melanie Klein. 24 RichardDorment,"TheJubileeMemorialto Queen Victoria,"in Alfred Gilbert: and (London:Royal Academy of Arts and Weidenfeldand NicSculptor Goldsmith holson, 1986), n.p. 25 The firstdefinition in the OED of "mistress" oppositeof master: "I.A woman is who rules,or has control. 1. A womanwho employsothers in her service; a woman who has the care of, or the authorityoverservantsor attendants" (vol. 1, 1971). But the ambiguity the term, as in "oldmistresses," of denoting antiquewomen paintersof great talent, is an example of the confusion between the authoritativeand sexual roles of women. It is highly unlikelythat Queen Victoria was the sexual mistressof her servant.

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