Shakespeare Without Women

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Shakespeare Without Womenis a controversial study of female impersonation, and the connections between dramatic and political representation in Shakespeare's plays. In this exhilarating and challenging book, Callaghan focuses on the implications of absence and exclusion in several of Shakespeare's works: *the exclusion of the female body fromTwelfth Night *the impersonation of the female voice in the original performances of the plays *racial impersonation inOthello *echoes of the removal of the Gaelic Irish inTheTempest *the absence of women on stage and in public life as shown inA Midsummer Night's Dream.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book offers a look at the lives of Elizabethan era women in the context of the great female characters in the works of William Shakespeare. Like the other entries in this fascinating series, Women in the Age of Shakespeare shows the influence of the world William Shakespeare lived in on the worlds he created for the stage, this time by focusing on women in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras in general and in Shakespeare's works in particular. Women in the Age of Shakespeare explores the ancient and medieval ideas that Shakespeare drew upon in creating his great comedic and tragic heroines. It then looks at how these ideas intersected with the lived experiences of women of Shakespeare's time, followed by a close look at the major female characters in Shakespeare's plays and poems. Later chapters consider how these characters have been enacted on stage and in film, interpreted by critics and scholars, and re-imagined by writers in our own time.

The question is not whether Shakespeare studies needs feminism, but whether feminism needs Shakespeare. This is the explicitly political approach taken in the dynamic and newly updated edition of A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare. Provides the definitive feminist statement on Shakespeare for the 21st century Updates address some of the newest theatrical andcreative engagements with Shakespeare, offering fresh insights into Shakespeare’s plays and poems, and gender dynamics in early modern England Contributors come from across the feminist generations and from various stages in their careers to address what is new in the field in terms of historical and textual discovery Explores issues vital to feminist inquiry, including race, sexuality, the body, queer politics, social economies, religion, and capitalism In addition to highlighting changes, it draws attention to the strong continuities of scholarship in this field over the course of the history of feminist criticism of Shakespeare The previous edition was a recipient of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title award; this second edition maintains its coverage and range, and bringsthe scholarship right up to the present day

Women of Will is a fierce and funny exploration of Shakespeare’s understanding of the feminine. Tina Packer, one of our foremost Shakespeare experts, shows that Shakespeare began, in his early comedies, by writing women as shrews to be tamed or as sweet little things with no independence of thought. The women of the history plays are much more interesting, beginning with Joan of Arc. Then, with the extraordinary Juliet, there is a dramatic shift: suddenly Shakespeare’s women have depth, motivation, and understanding of life more than equal to that of the men. As Shakespeare ceases to write women as predictable caricatures and starts writing them from the inside, his women become as dimensional, spirited, spiritual, active, and sexual as any of his male characters. Wondering if Shakespeare had fallen in love (Packer considers with whom, and what she may have been like), the author observes that from Juliet on, Shakespeare’s characters demonstrate that when women and men are equal in status and passion, they can—and do—change the world.

Shakespeare and the Nature of Women was the first full-length feminist analysis of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, ushering in a new era in research and criticism. Its arguments for the feminism both of the drama and the early modern period caused instant controversy, which still engrosses scholars. Dusinberre argues that Puritan teaching on sexuality and spiritual equality raises questions about women which feed into the drama, where the role of women in relation to authority structures is constantly renegotiated. Using a critical language which predates Foucault and other major theorists, Shakespeare and the Nature of Women argues that Renaissance drama highlights ways in which the feminine and the masculine are socially constructed. The presence of the boy actor on stage created an awareness of gender as performance, now crucial to contemporary feminist thought. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women claimed for women a right to speak about the literary text from their own place in history and culture. The author's Preface to the second edition traces contemporary developments in feminist scholarship, which still wrestles with the book's main thesis: Renaissance feminism, feminist Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Studies is an international volume published every year in hardcover, containing more than three hundred pages of essays and studies by critics from both hemispheres.