Essay on Women in the Plays of William Shakespeare -- Biography Biogra

Women in the Plays of Shakespeare By paying close attention to the womans vary in Shakespeares plays, we can see his works with a new perspective. But we must remember that we are examining a male dramatist of extraordinary enjoin writing in a remote period when womens position was in obvious ways more restricted and less disputed than in our experience period. Sandra Gilbert writes in The Madwoman in the Attic that literature is defined as a mirror held up to society and nature, the mimetic aesthetic that begins with Aristotle and descends through Shakespeare implies that the poet, homogeneous a lesser God, has made or engendered an alternative, mirror-universe in which he actually seems to enclose or trap shadows of reality (Madwoman 5). While some artists do not necessarily duplicate in their art the realities of their culture, they may exploit them to create character or intensify conflict, or struggle with, criticize, or transcend them. Shakespeare, it would seem, encompa sses more and preaches less than most authors, hence the centuries-old controversy over his religious affiliation, political views, and sexual preferences (Lenz 4). His attitude toward women are equally complex and demand as oftentimes examination. As we begin to study the female characters, we must overlook the male superiority that patriarchal misogyny implies in the literature of his era, as evidenced in many studies. In Shakespeare on Love and Lust, Charney explains the stance taken by critics such as Janet Adelman in Suffocating Mothers Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeares Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest, and Kahns Mans Estate Masculine Identity in Shakespeare. He claims that these two authors, as many others do, view Sh... ... mother, wife, nor Englands queen The Roles of Women in Richard III. The Womans digress Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Galye Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Chicago University of Illinois Press, 1980. Park, Clar a Claiborne. As We Like It How a Girl Can Be Smart and be quiet Popular. The Womans Part Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. Chicago University of Illinois Press, 1980. Schoenbaum, S. The Life of Shakespeare. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Ed Stanley Wells. Great Britain Cambridge University Press, 1997. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of Ones Own. The Norton Anthology of writings by Women. Sandra Gilbert. New York Norton and Company, 1996. www.adfl.org/ade/bulletin/N087/0087015.htm