Anne Boleyn in popular culture

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. The following lists cover various media, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture, film and fiction. The entries represent portrayals that a reader has a reasonable chance of encountering, rather than a complete catalogue.

Portrayals

A common view in the 18th and 19th centuries was the image of Anne as a romantic victim; a strong-willed and beautiful woman who was destroyed by her husband, who was presented as a brutal tyrant by most popular historians. A 19th-century biography of Anne by Elizabeth Benger was particularly full of praise for Anne, as was one entitled Star of the Court by Selina Bunbury. Famous writers and novelists who subscribed to this view of Anne (which persisted into the 20th century) included Jane Austen, Agnes Strickland, Jean Plaidy and playwright Maxwell Anderson. The play and Oscar-winning movie Anne of the Thousand Days is inspired by this interpretation of Anne's life, as is Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena. Various popular novels have also adopted this sympathetic idea of Anne Boleyn.

In the latter half of the 20th century, academic historians who were determined to study Henry VIII's government and court as serious political and cultural institutions argued that Anne Boleyn was one of the most ambitious, intelligent and important queens in European history. They researched her political sympathies, patronage network and influence over foreign policy and religious affairs. This led to several academic studies of her life, the most famous of which are the first and second editions of the comprehensive biography written by the British historian, Eric Ives. The second edition, influenced by fellow historian David Starkey's focus on a reformist sermon commissioned by Anne, posits that Anne may have had an authentic spiritual mission and may have been as much an agent as a catalyst for the British Reformation. They both suggest that it may have been her particular Reformist agenda (and not simply her inability to produce a male heir) that put her at odds with Cromwell and led to her execution. David Starkey, the historian who hosted a television program about all six of the wives, keenly promotes this particularly attractive view of Anne. Combined with the intellectual force of feminism, which has interpreted Anne Boleyn in a highly favourable light, most academic histories write about her with respect and sympathy. Authors David Loades, John Guy, and Diarmaid MacCulloch have also published works that were sympathetic or admiring on the subject. Popular biographies by Joanna Denny and feminist Karen Lindsey have taken similar approaches, both being highly favourable to Anne. Lindsey, in Divorced, Beheaded, Survived, makes the case that Henry's relentless pursuit of Anne, far from being part of a manipulative flirtation which she enjoyed, was a form of royal harassment from which Anne's delaying tactics were the closest she dared come to escape. This is consistent with Henry's "courtships" of Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, which have traditionally been seen as not wholly consensual on their part.

The work of American academic Retha Warnicke focuses on the unmitigated gender prejudices of the early 16th century and how they formed Anne into being first a pawn and ultimately a willingly venal and unscrupulous agent for her own and her family's advancement. Warnicke's Anne is controversial, and some of her hypotheses (that Anne's brother was part of a clandestine homosexual clique at Court; that Anne would have stopped at nothing, including using her brother's own seed, to birth a male heir for the king) are not supported by the majority of scholars, however compellingly lurid they may be. Other notably unattractive portraits come from the work of British historian Alison Weir and novelist Philippa Gregory. In her best-seller The Other Boleyn Girl, Gregory puts Anne as the hard-hearted villain in a story with Anne's sister Mary Boleyn as its sadder but wiser heroine. (In her "author's note" to the book, Gregory said her novel's conclusion was based upon Warnicke's findings in The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, but Warnicke has publicly distanced herself^{[citation needed]} from the novel and its presentation of the Boleyns).

There have been various treatments of her life by popular historians such as Marie Louise Bruce, Hester W. Chapman, Norah Lofts, Carolly Erickson, Alison Weir, Lady Antonia Fraser and Joanna Denny. In film, television and the performing arts, she has been played by a variety of well-known actresses and sopranos, including Clara Kimball Young, Merle Oberon, Joyce Redman, Geneviève Bujold (Oscar-nominated), Maria Callas, Beverly Sills, Dame Dorothy Tutin, Dame Joan Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, Jodhi May, Natalie Portman and Natalie Dormer.

Film, stage, and television portrayals

• Anne Boleyn was portrayed by Clara Kimball Young in a 1912 short film about Cardinal Wolsey.
• She was portrayed by Henny Porten in the 1920 film Anna Boleyn.
• She was portrayed by Oscar-nominated Merle Oberon in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII which won an Oscar for Charles Laughton's portrayal of Henry.
• Joyce Redman played Anne on Broadway in 1949 opposite Rex Harrison's Tony Award-winning portrayal of Henry in Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of the Thousand Days
• Elaine Stewart played Anne Boleyn in the 1953 film Young Bess, starring Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr and Charles Laughton.
• Geneviève Bujold won a Golden Globe Award, and was nominated for an Oscar, for her portrayal of Anne in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days.
• Dorothy Tutin was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for her role as Anne in the 1970 mini-series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. When that mini-series was compressed into a film, Charlotte Rampling played Anne in the film version entitled Henry VIII and his Six Wives (1972).
• Julia Marsen portrayed Anne in historian David Starkey's 2001 documentary TV series, The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
• Jodhi May portrayed Anne in the 2003 British TV movie version of the novel The Other Boleyn Girl.
• Helena Bonham Carter portrayed Anne in the 2003 TV movie Henry VIII, later released as a DVD (Ray Winstone portrayed Henry).
• Natalie Dormer portrayed Anne in the Showtime series The Tudors in seasons 1 and 2 (2007 and 2008); and season 4 (brief cameo, 2010).
• Natalie Portman portrayed Anne in the film The Other Boleyn Girl in 2008.
• Howard Brenton's 2010 play Anne Boleyn (Shakespeare's Globe) was centered on Anne's life.
• Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballé, Edita Gruberova, and Anna Netrebko all portrayed Anne Boleyn onstage and/or in recordings of the Donizetti opera Anna Bolena.

In popular culture

• Playing on claims she was a witch, her portrait can be seen hanging along the staircases at Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
• In a dream sequence at the start of Kevin & Perry Go Large, the teenage character Kevin is reading a book on Anne Boleyn for his homework, but instead his mind wanders to a sexual fantasy in which Anne (played by Natasha Little and speaking in 20th-century teenage slang) convinces her executioner (Kevin) that to kill her would be a waste of her beautiful body and in return gives him oral sex.

Books

• She is a central character in To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn by Sandra Byrd (2011) ISBN 9781439183113
• She was a central character in Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2009) ISBN 0007230184
• She was a character in The King's Rose by Alisa M. Libby (2009) ISBN 978-0-525-47970-3.
• She was the joint main character in Luther's Ambassadors by Jay Margrave (2008) ISBN 9780955941504.
• She was the main character in Mademoiselle Boleyn by Robin Maxwell (2007) ISBN 9780451222091.
• She was the main character in A Lady Raised High by Laurien Gardner (2006) ISBN 0515140899.
• She was the main character in The Queen of Subtleties by Suzannah Dunn (2004) ISBN 0060591579.
• She was the main character in Doomed Queen Anne by Caroline Meyer (2002) ISBN 0152165231.
• She was the main character in Dear Heart, How Like You This? by Wendy J. Dunn (2002) ISBN 0958054355.
• She was a central character in The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (2001) ISBN 0743227441.
• She was the main character in The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell (1997) ISBN 155970375X.
• She was the main character in Blood Royal by Mollie Hardwick (1988) ISBN 0312025483.
• She was the main character in The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy (1986).
• Anne is given a sympathetic portrayal in The Dark Rose (1981), Volume 2 in The Morland Dynasty, a series of historical novels by author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. The lead female character in the novel becomes a close friend, confidante and lady-in-waiting to Anne.
• She was the main character in A Tudor Story: The Return of Anne Boleyn by W. S. Pakenham-Walsh (1963) ISBN 9780227676783
• She was the main character in The Concubine by Norah Lofts (1963) ISBN 075243943X.
• She was a character in The King's Secret Matter by Jean Plaidy (1962).
• She was the main character in Anne Boleyn by Evelyn Anthony (1957).
• Murder Most Royal by Jean Plaidy (1949) ISBN 1400082498.
• She was the main character in Queen Anne Boleyn by Francis Hackett (1939).
• She appears in The House of Arden by E. Nesbit (1908).
• A main character in the comic novel, Alien Queens by Molly Cutpurse ISBN 978-1-4092-7695-1

Music and song

• The opera Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti
• Anne is referenced in Tori Amos' song "Talula" on her Boys for Pele album with the lyrics 'Ran into the henchman who severed Anne Boleyn, he did it right quickly a merciful man. She said 1+1 is 2, but Henry said that it was 3.' Amos also says in her interview on Fade to Red that her song "Crucify" from her album Little Earthquakes was inspired by Anne Boleyn.
• She is also referenced in a song titled "Old Age", written by Courtney Love and performed by her band Hole: "someone please tell Anne Boleyn/chokers are back in bloom." The song appeared on their outtakes album, My Body, the Hand Grenade, in which Anne was also featured in the artwork. She also appears, with a cutout of her upper chest showing her "B" necklace, on the back cover of Hole's album Nobody's Daughter, released 27 April 2010.
• The song "Transylvania" by McFly mentions Anne Boleyn and is portrayed by Dougie Poynter in the music video.
• The ghost of Anne haunting the Tower of London is the subject of the comically macabre song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm", originally performed by Stanley Holloway and later recorded by The Kingston Trio.
• In his 1973 album The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Rick Wakeman titled the fifth track "Anne Boleyn".
• The Dutch symphonic rock band Kayak issued a single called "Anne", about Anne Boleyn, from their album Periscope Life (1980).
• Anne is referenced in the Cat Stevens song "Ghost Town," on the 1974 Stevens' album Buddha and the Chocolate Box.
• Anne is referenced in the song "Find the Lady" from Edward Ka-Spel's solo album Laugh, China Doll in the line "Anne Boleyn is shouting Boo! (Because a ghost cannot applaud)".
• "Death (Rock Me to Sleep)", based on a poem said to have been written by Anne Boleyn, and set to a tune by Lucy Ward, appears on Lucy Ward's 2011 album Adelphi Has to Fly.

Television

• The headless doll owned by Morticia Addams in The Addams Family is named Anne Boleyn; Wednesday Addams's doll is named Marie Antoinette.
• In Ugly Betty, Betty Suarez wears a replica of Anne Boleyn's necklace.
• In the second-season episode of the NBC series The Office entitled "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," Dwight serenades the visiting children on the recorder, and says, "That was 'Greensleeves,' a traditional English ballad about the beheaded Anne Boleyn."