Are Shakespeare’s plays dramatizations of patriarchy or representations of assertive and eloquent women? Or are they sometimes both? And is it relevant, and if so how, that his women were first played by boys? This book shows how many kinds of feminist theory help analyze the dynamics of Shakespeare’s plays. Both feminist theory and the plays deal with issues such as likeness and difference between the sexes, the complexity of relationships between women, the liberating possibilities of desire, what marriage means and how much women can remake it, how women can use and expand their culture’s ideas of motherhood and of women’s work, and how women can have power through language. This lively exploration of these and related issues is an ideal introduction to the field of feminist readings of Shakespeare.Shakespeare’s plays explore topics that feminist theorists discuss, but evaluations of them differ partly because there are different currents within feminist theory. Some feminists praise plays for their suggestions of equality between the sexes, others for hints of female difference and superiority. They disagree about whether women’s subordination in the plays is critiqued or endorsed. Critics also disagree about the significance of the practice of having boys act women in the English public theatre.Shakespeare’s plays often show women pursuing their desire, sometimes homoerotic, sometimes adulterous, but usually leading toward marriage. In comedies, marriage may resolve a tension between a woman’s agency and patriarchal tradition, but in most tragedies and histories the women are destroyed. Many plays show a husband’s jealousy to be unwarranted and some argue against a double standard. Feminist disagreements about marriage in Shakespeare result partly from disagreements about whether marriage is unjust.Shakespeare often adds mothers to his sources or expands their roles. Few mothers show the sympathy for all children expected in difference feminism. Many have interests outside motherhood. Fantasies of mothers good or evil affect other relationships.Shakespeare’s female characters are often eloquent. They frequently critique men’s language about them. Feminist critics disagree about whether their language of self-deprecation is gender-linked and whether their curses have power.The plays take women’s friendships seriously, but sometimes show women with relationships strained by competition, class difference or implicit colour contrast.Plays variously suggest women’s abilities at traditional and non-traditional work. Women in service are sometimes romanticized, occasionally mocked. The women performing in the commedia dell’arte and those helping his theatre behind the scenes may have influenced him.

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