Shakespeare's women : performance and conception
This book examines the treatment of women in 205 plays by Shakespeare's predecessors and contemporaries, exploring their influence on his work. By challenging the gay and polemical feminist accounts currently dominating the treatment of Elizabethan cross-dressing, the book restores its importance as a mainstream performance topic for academics and students.
Print Book, English, 2009
Reprinted 2009 View all formats and editions
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009
ix, 293 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780521882132, 0521882133
1030069165
Preliminary: the persistence of all-male theatre; Introduction: the significance of the performer; 1. Age and status; 2. Erotic ambience; 3. Stage costume and performer ethos; 4. Male didacticism and female stereotyping; 5. Dramatic empathy and moral ambiguity; 6. Sexual violence; 7. Positive representations of young women; Appendix: female characters in the adult repertory 1500–1614.