Iceni to iconic: Literary, political and ideological transformations of Boudica through time

Abstract

Boudica has captivated the imagination of generations of scholars, artists, writers and poets, eventually becoming firmly entrenched in popular culture which has attempted to articulate England’s national identity through the dwelling on the heroic past and emphasising her position as a Muse. This article focuses on the use and manipulation of the image of Boudica to evoke the heritage of the ‘noble savage’ or as an example of ‘native barbarianism’ by successive regimes striving to establish a historical foundational past in an attempt to create a nationalist historiography. The representation of the image of Boudica through a detailed historical analysis, starting from the earliest mention in Tacitus to more recent representations of the icon, will illustrate how the dichotomy of interpretation has rendered her a chameleon: sometimes a villain and sometimes a heroine. However, through all these incarnations, Boudica never truly loses her place as a nationalistic icon, symbol of victory and figurehead of resistance for the emergent British people.