HAMLET & OLIVIA: Mourning too long?
Stephen Greenblatt ("Shakespearean Negotiations") is among those scholars who note that Twelfth Night 's Olivia is a caricature of Elizabeth I, mourning the death of her father (HenryVIII, whom she idolized) and brother (young King Edward), and making excuses to avoid being courted for marriage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_(1996_film) Olivia's steward, Malvolio, may therefore be a caricature of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who in the play is toyed with as being possessed and gets a mock-exorcism (!), which (in the eyes of some, like Essex) Cecil deserved, of course. If the unnaturally mourning Olivia can be Eliz I, what about Hamlet? If Viola, and MofV's Portia, and AYLI's Rosalind, etc., can disguise themselves as males, then Hamlet can stand (at least in part) for an idealized Elizabeth, a recipe for how Elizabeth I might end her life and reconcile with James, that prince from the north, the son of her enemy, as Hamlet does with Fo