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Shakespeare's Heroines
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.
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.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1832
About the author
Anna Brownell Jameson
269 books8 followersAnna Brownell Jameson (May 17, 1794 - March 17, 1860) was an Anglo-Irish writer and feminist.
Her father, Denis Brownell Murphy was a miniature and enamel painter. He moved to England in 1798 with his family, and eventually settled at Hanwell, London.
Anna Jameson spent the winter and spring of 1836–37 in Toronto with her husband, Robert Sympson Jameson, attorney general of Upper Canada. She travelled extensively in southern Ontario during the summer of 1837, recording her impressions through her sketches, watercolours and writing in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838).
Jameson's first work, Characteristics of Women (1832) displayed her powers of original thought. Her analyses of William Shakespeare's heroines are remarkable for their delicacy of critical insight and fineness of literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own sex, detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader.
Her father, Denis Brownell Murphy was a miniature and enamel painter. He moved to England in 1798 with his family, and eventually settled at Hanwell, London.
Anna Jameson spent the winter and spring of 1836–37 in Toronto with her husband, Robert Sympson Jameson, attorney general of Upper Canada. She travelled extensively in southern Ontario during the summer of 1837, recording her impressions through her sketches, watercolours and writing in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838).
Jameson's first work, Characteristics of Women (1832) displayed her powers of original thought. Her analyses of William Shakespeare's heroines are remarkable for their delicacy of critical insight and fineness of literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own sex, detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader.
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