A review by berenikeasteria
The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen by Susan Bordo

5.0

I’ve been anticipating this book and following Susan’s webpage for some time as she worked on it and posted tantalising snippets from its pages, and I must say, this is the book I’d been hoping someone would write about Anne Boleyn. Lucid, sensible, and cogently presented, The Creation of Anne Boleyn explains to the general reader why you shouldn’t believe everything you’ve heard about Anne, and, for the Anne enthusiasts, explores in some depth Anne in all her later interpretations over the centuries, from stage plays to film to historical fiction novels.

Admittedly, certain sections didn’t interest me as much as others. I was far more fascinated by the modern re-imaginings of Anne than the sections on the early plays about her, for example, but that’s just personal interests coming to bear. I was pretty astonished when Bordo writes that at talks when she asks people what do they know about Anne the top responses were still the gossipy falsities concocted by the likes of hostile writers such as Catholic propagandist Nicholas Sanders (who, in any case, wrote decades after Anne’s death and never met her) – the old six fingers, witchcraft, incest, adultery chestnuts. I couldn’t quite believe that with all the research that has been done in the past few decades to disprove and dispel much of this nonsense that the baseless myths still cling on with a tight grip in the public consciousness. I probably shouldn’t be surprised, since having trained as a historian I frequently run up against a mire of myths when it comes to educating the general public (people have variously asserted to me that the obelisks must have been transported by magic, that aliens were responsible for building the pyramids, and that I couldn’t possibly be a REAL Egyptologist because I’m a woman and only men can be in the Masons and only the Masons know the real truth about ancient Egypt).

This is why books like The Creation of Anne Boleyn are important. Some academics sniff at “popular histories”, written for the accessibility of the general reader in mind, but I think their importance cannot be overstated. The Creation of Anne Boleyn cuts through the fog of rumour and scandal to present the facts and get people to think about why they maybe should question the reliability of sources from the past. Bordo approaches Anne from the perspective of an expert in gender studies, not a traditional historian, and explores not only historical Anne but her connection to later people, and how she is reinterpreted and used by later groups with their own worldview and sometimes agenda.

I think Bordo’s hit the nail on the head when it comes to revealing the real Anne. She doesn’t go into as much depth as Eric Ives, who wrote what is arguably the definitive biography of Anne, because her interest is as much in later interpretation of Anne as Anne herself, but she provides a balanced and objective view of Anne that actually matches the idea I’ve always had of Anne Boleyn: intelligent with a sharp mind, thoughtful, open-minded, stylish, sometimes hot-tempered, and charismatic. A woman who probably did not set out to seduce King Henry VIII and become queen, but whose charm and wit were at the forefront of changing attitudes about women’s roles and thus fresh to the king, catching his eye, refusing him in an effort to put him off since Anne was smart enough to know what happened to royal mistresses (not least her discarded sister, Mary), and then slowly realising over time that firstly Henry was not going to give up and secondly that in fact they had a lot in common in terms of wit, intelligence, and interest in the new thought of the Renaissance. Together, they built a relationship that was a new model to the kinds of relationships Medieval royal couples had which were based on the lord and master and the obedient supportive helpmeet wife: Anne and Henry forged a partnership of equals, a true marriage of minds, something which Bordo herself observes.

There is one historical blooper that was spotted, and which Bordo is correcting for the paperback release of the book. The hardback version has Anne snubbed by Queen Claude of France when Anne and Henry meet King François – an unusual snub since Anne once served Claude as a lady in waiting and the two were apparently on amiable terms. In fact, Queen Claude had died by this point and François had remarried, to Eleanor of Austria.

However, blooper aside, I highly recommend this book to absolutely everyone.

9 out of 10