The Long Queen

• The grammatical structure Of the opening declarative sentence "The Long Queen couldn't die." reflects the certainty and stability of her rule
• The Long Queen could be interpreted as following as following the 45 year rule of Elizabeth I due to the exceptional length of her rule making her "the long queen" and the values she stood for such as normalising women's periods as symbolised by "blood" and "the pain when a girl first bled"
• The Long Queen throughout the poem is mythologised through semantics of fairytale imagery such as "witches" and "the tower in the dark heart of a wood"
• "the cold weight of the crown" reflects the power, isolation, and burden the long queen feels
• The Long Queen chooses to take the personified image of "time" as a husband as she knows ruling alongside a male figure would diminish her power and instead chooses to expand her rule over accepting the courtship of "the duke, the lord, the baronet, (and) the count"
• Asyndetic listing of "the second son of the earl, the foreign prince, the heir to the duke, the lord, the baronet, the count" shows how many suitors the long queen had to choose from showing how her choice to rule without a king by her side was of her own volition
• the rhetorical question "what was she queen of?" reflects how many question the long queen's rule due to the fact she was a woman as female rulers were not typical of her time
• "long live the queen" emphasises how most of the long queens subjects revere and respect her seeing her as a great ruler
• Asyndetic listing of "women, girls, spinsters, and hags, matrons, wet nurses, witches, widows, wives, mothers" represents how many women benefit from having a female ruler to look up to and aspire to
• Alliteration of "witches, widows, wives" connects these women symbolising how they feel as one under the long queens rule
• The long queen is presented as maternal as there was "no girl born who wasn't the Long Queen's always child"
• the long queen ruling from "the tower in the dark heart of a wood" reflects isolation as she is kept away from the core population of her subjects reflecting how women in power must sacrifice their own desires to maintain power and are largely rejected by mainstream society
• The Long Queens "laws" reflect the stages of a woman's life "childhood" "blood" "tears" and "childhood"
• The Long Queen's first law of "childhood" aims to protect young girls from the dangers of the world ensuring they are "never left scouring the markets and shops"
• The Long Queen's second "law" of "blood" focuses on dispelling shame surrounding periods showing pride in the "royal red" of the blood associated with periods
• "the moon" represents the cyclical nature of a woman's period as well as the fact it is connected to the symbol of femininity and a natural part of a woman's life
• The long queens third "law" of "tears" is centred around dispelling shame around female emotion as tears are symbolised with rich imagery of "salt pearls" and "bright jewels"
• out of all of the long queens "laws" "tears" is given the shortest section of the poem reflecting how women's emotions are diminished by those around them portraying them as too sensitive
• The Long Queens fourth "law" of "childbirth" emphasises the strength of women through childbirth as the "push till the room screamed scarlet" with the imagery of the colour symbolising ferocity and power as well as blood
• the oxymoronic imagery of "soft flowers" is symbolic of how women can be both soft and strong at the same time
• the onomatopoeia of "the drums of women" displays how the rule of the long queen amplifies women's voices and creates a sense of unity within the female population
• The long queen measures 7 stanzas of 6 lines each; this consistent structure reflects the stability and certainty of the long queen's rule