"Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens is a lively and erudite collection, unusual in an especially appealing way: not only are there essays about a range of queens and how they were represented in the Middle Ages and Renaissance through primary accounts,chronicles, and literary representations, but the book also contains modern poetry and short plays about these same queens, allowing readers to understand and appreciate them both intellectually and emotionally. Queens include such famous and fascinatingwomen as Hecuba, Cleopatra, the Empress Matilda, Margaret of Anjou, Catherine of Aragon, Mary Stuart, and Queen Elizabeth I, and Grace O'Malley, a pirate queen. One can find, for example, an essay on Mary Stuart's responses to her widowhoods paired with Mary's lamentation from the afterlife. After reading the analysis of the Empress Matilda's efforts to gain the throne of England, one can also see the character of the much older Matilda playing chess with her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine"--