From England's Bridewell to America's Brides: Imprisoned Women, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure , and Empire (original) (raw)
Related papers
Patriotic women: Shakespearean heroines of the 1720s
History of European Ideas, 2005
This paper discusses three adaptations of Shakespeare's history plays written during the 1720s. These texts, I contend, counter claims that positive representations of women during this period were confined to the domestic sphere. In these plays women are active participants in the public realm of politics and commerce. The heroines of Ambrose Philips' Humfrey Duke of Gloucester (1723), Aaron Hill's King Henry the Fifth (1723) and Theophilus Cibber's King Henry the Sixth (1724), rather than being driven by love and domestic duty, act on political motivation. Patriotism, which characterises these women, is the primary political slogan of all three plays. These female protagonists exemplify the value of a patriotic political conduct that crosses party lines. Their unpartisan or universal brand of patriotism anticipates the opposition views expressed by Bolingbroke in the following decade. This paper also addresses the broad consensus amongst Feminist critics that women in adaptations of Shakespeare provide little more than mere ‗breeches roles' titillation. The histories of Philips, Hill and Cibber represent heroines who, no less than their male counterparts, exercise control during political crises. These women are not objects of titillation but subjects for emulation. 'Is Fortitude and Wisdom, Given to Man Alone?' 1 Early 18th-century adaptations of Shakespeare can arguably be regarded as reconstructions of the plays for the ‗modern' stage. Commentators such as Jean Marsden have convincingly suggested that post-1660 drama turns its attention to love, family and marriage, all subjects
2016
This dissertation analyzes dowry in three Shakespeare plays-The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice. The analysis aims to show that the dowry negotiations and agreements are the most important component of the patriarchal structure of marriage depicted in Shakespeare's plays. Since dowry agreements signal the impending transition from feme sole to feme covert, they are appropriated by the women in the three plays under consideration as the first stage in a process to assure subjectivity after their marriages. To maintain subjectivity, Katharina, Bianca, Juliet, Portia, and Jessica seek to create and occupy a liminal space between the subjectivity allowed a feme sole and the obliteration of the legal and social identity demanded by their new status as femes covert. Since dowry negotiations and agreements signal the impending change from subject to object, the women use them as the first stage of opportunity in their quests to maintain subjectivity after marriage. as well as Jessica's transformation from Jewish feme sole to Christian feme covert. I conclude with a discussion Shakespeare's use of dowry as a character development device and to reveal the father's authentic relationships with their daughters.
Of Beauty and Blood: Revisiting Renaissance Shakespearean Tragic Women
Rawan G. Agha, 2022
This paper aims to revisit two of William Shakespeare's works: Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet in order to provide a feminist reading which examines his female characters further. As a Renaissance playwright, Shakespeare is fascinated by adding classical Greek elements in his own work; thus, he believes that tragedy is the epitome of literature and that beauty is to be idolized and sometimes feared. Combining both attributes, Shakespeare seems to be bewitched by killing most of his fair characters, especially women; to crown them as more impeccable, beautiful, and tragic. Using the concept of "angel of death," first scored by Alexander Welsh and further explained by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, this paper inspects and discusses the repetitive dramatized death of Shakespeare's most prominent beautiful female figures: Juliet and Ophelia.
Review of _What You Will: Gender, Contract, and Shakespearean Social Space_, by Kathryn Schwarz.
s monograph offers an intense exploration of will and its relation to patriarchal order in early modern England. The book's chief contribution is that it brings together a rich catalogue of historical texts alongside a densely documented exploration of theory and criticism more contemporary to the reader. There can be no doubt that Schwarz's claims are all rigorously researched and she moves with astounding agility from consulting Renaissance authors, such as Elyot and Hooker, to contemporary scholars, such as Belsey, Dolan, and Paster. Sometimes the speed of this movement is dizzying and her point verges on being lost in a sea of quotations, but for the repetition she employs.
A Study of Shakespeare's Women: Reevaluating the History Plays
Journal of the Midlands Conference on Language and Literature, 1992
Despite much scholarship on Shakespeare's tragic/trapped and comedic/stoic women, few studies illuminate the almost non-existent role of women in the history plays. The challenge is to deemphasize the riveting male characters of the histories--Falstaff, Hal, and Richard II--and focus instead upon the intelligent, resourceful, and often silent women who populate these plays. With an alternate reading, we valorize these women and discover much about societally-imposed expectations in the Elizabethan age as literary archeologists uncovering a salient past. Margaret of Anjou (Henry VI, Richard III) and Lady Percy-Kate (Henry IV) discover that they can never really control their lives. Henry VI easily preempts Margaret's hard-won authority. At his death, her only alternative is to move into the role of leftover queen. Kate also lives with insignificance. She is isolated when Hotspur's penchant for warring precludes his love for her. We experience the bitter progression as these historical women understand that they are destined to live in the margin. Their identities are determined by the men they marry. However, Margaret achieves control in the end, not over the lives of others, but over her own self. Widowed and throneless, no longer a possession, she defies Richard III and becomes his personal prophetess of doom. The women of the history plays reflect the uncertain status of Elizabethan women, yet Shakespeare questions their predetermined roles and identities.
The Elizabethan Era and Shakespeare’s Women Characters in the Public Arena
The Criterion, 2019
This study manages the situation of women in the public arena in Elizabethan Era and how these are delineated in the composition of William Shakespeare. The English writer is viewed as one of the best dramatist ever who manages the positions in which women play in his dramatization and how they impact their individual stories.Shakespeare and also the members of the Elizabethan era would be dismayed at the freedoms women expertise nowadays. What we tend to see throughout Shakespeare's plays is associate insight into the feminine character as perceived by Elizabethan culture. Shakespeare's feminine characters mirror the Elizabethan era's image of women; they were to be virtuous and tractable and people that weren't were delineated as undesirable and even evil. Shakespeare's ability for creating all types of characters is one noteworthy angle that represents this elevated affirmation. The outstanding playwright made many different female characters who are so human and genuine that the audience can see parts of their own identitiesregardless.