Shakespeare's writing was aimed at Elizabeth, first as tribute and useful political tool, entertainment or ridicule of court figures, domestic and foreign. Later when romance and favor faded, in the face of banishment, the works aimed as many darts at her as love poems. In their reconciliation period, he took on the task of promoting her legend, divine right and the greatness of her 'dear lover England.' He engaged others in the work, Marlowe would have been one, Nashe also.
The plays went through revisions, so you had vestiges of tribute in plays with much darker attitudes interwoven. In the end she forsook him, and the plays reflect his sense of betrayal. But even with the poem Venus and Adonis there is a remembrance of things past, and her voluptuous days, and to her, in '93 when she was 'painting an inch thick,' that would have been a kind of compliment.
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