Sophie Duncan illuminates iconoclastic performances of Shakespeare's heroines in late Victorian theatre, through the celebrity, commentary, and careers of the actresses who played them. Duncan draws on a wealth of archival material to explore the vital ways in which fin-de-siecle Shakespeare and Victorian theatre culture conditioned each other.
Ziegler, Dolan, and Roberts' "attention is directed specifically to the representations of Shakespeare's women in the Victorian era, rather than on the Elizabethan stage ... [They have] culled from the [Folger] Library's vast holdings a remarkably varied and illuminating array of books, manuscripts, and illustrations which provide a new understanding of how Shakespeare's heroines came to embody, reflect, and refract the values and assumptions of nineteenth-century English society."--Foreword, p.7.
Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, language: English, abstract: Throughout the ages one particular cultural topic has occupied the minds of scholars, authors and politicians, the question of a woman’s position in society. Up until the 20th century, when feminist activists finally reached achievements with their actions, the most important being the female right to vote, which was granted to women in Great Britain in 1918 only, the woman’s inferior position to the man was seen as a given. Many works, fictional as well as academic and advisory were written throughout the ages that deal with the relations between men and women, not only by female authors, but also by male. Rooting in the basic dogmata of patriarchal society, the oppression of the “weaker” sex and the regard of women as the “weaker vessel” was justified with the Bible, anatomical facts and biological beliefs. Usually a woman was expected to be subject to her husband, father or other male superior, her job was to stay at home and take care of children and household. Great Britain was no exception to this rule. Nonetheless it is a curious fact that the great country has existed many years under a female monarch, and this not only once. Two of the world’s most popular monarchs, who both reigned over 40 years, were the British queens Elizabeth I and Victoria. The first ruled over the country in the sixteenth, the second in the nineteenth century, but both were cause for many debates and gossip in English society of their respecting times. Each of the two women was an extraordinary woman and an important monarch, who achieved a lot for her country, and yet in their being women, both royals were typical for the women of their time. Despite their many similarities, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria could not have been more different, since they lived and ruled in different times and regarded their roles as women and rulers differently. This paper will deal with exactly these problems. I will look at the problem of women’s role in Elizabethan and in Victorian society, regarding their position according to their social, financial and marital status. Furthermore the paper will inspect the idea of the ideal woman and her position next to the man. At last I will assay the phenomena of the female ruler and analyse the figures of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria and explore their situation as women on the throne.
Frontispiece accompanied by guard sheet with descriptive letterpress. Mainly in support of the theory that Mary Fitton was the "dark lady" of the Sonnets.
What did the Victorians think of Shakespeare? The twelve essays gathered here offer some answers, through close examination of works by leading nineteenth-century novelists, poets and critics including Dickens, Trollope, Eliot, Tennyson, Browning and Ruskin. Shakespeare provided the Victorians with ways of thinking about the authority of the past, about the emergence of a new mass culture, about the relations between artistic and industrial production, about the nature of creativity, about racial and sexual difference, and about individual and national identity.
The first in-depth exploration of Shakespeare's female characters, this is a must-read for Shakespeare fans and scholars, students of feminist theory and gender roles, and anyone with an interest in the Victorian era.
First published in 1832, Shakespeare’s Heroines is a unique hybrid of Shakespeare criticism, women’s rights activism, and conduct literature. Jameson’s collection of readings of female characters includes praise for unexpected role models as varied as Portia, Cleopatra, and Lady Macbeth; her interpretations of these and other characters portray intellect, passion, political ambition, and eroticism as acceptable aspects of women’s behaviour. This inventive work of literary criticism addresses the problems of women’s education and participation in public life while also providing insightful, original, and entertaining readings of Shakespeare’s women. This Broadview Edition includes a critical introduction that places Shakespeare’s Heroines in the context of Jameson’s literary career and political life. Appendices include personal correspondence and other literary and political writings by Jameson, examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Shakespeare criticism, and selections from Victorian conduct books.