TRAGEDY, TRANSGRESSION, AND WOMEN'S VOICES: THE CASES OF ELEANOR COBHAM AND MARGARET OF ANJOU.

This article uses two controversial late medieval women--Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Gloucester (ca. 1400-1452), and Queen Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482)--to explore trends in popular history in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Working within the de casibus tradition, writers in England, France, Burgundy, and Italy apply Giovanni Boccaccio's exemplary model to Eleanor and Margaret, depicting them as powerful speakers whose rhetorical skills contribute to both their rise and fall. Over roughly a century and a half, these complementary but not necessarily contemporaneous narratives become entangled, culminating in the anachronistic rivalry between the women in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II in the 1590s. The use of these tropes in texts written while both women were still alive, furthermore, illustrates the versatility of de casibus narratives during this time, applicable not only to historical figures long dead, but also to those still living, breathing, and most importantly, speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]