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Shakespeare and Women
Shakespeare and Women situates Shakespeare's female characters in multiple historical contexts, ranging from the early modern England in which they originated to the contemporary Western world in which our own encounters with them are staged. In so doing, this book seeks to challenge currently prevalent views of Shakespeare's women-both the women he depicted in his plays and the women he encountered in the world he inhabited.
Chapter 1, "A Usable History," analyses the implications and consequences of the emphasis on patriarchal power, male misogyny, and women's oppression that has dominated recent feminist Shakespeare scholarship, while subsequent chapters propose alternative models for feminist analysis. Chapter 2, "The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World," emphasizes the frequently overlooked kinds of social, political, and economic agency exercised by the women Shakespeare would have known in both Stratford and London. Chapter 3, "Our Canon, Ourselves," addresses the implications of the modern popularity of plays such as The Taming of the Shrew which seem to endorse women's subjugation, arguing that the plays--and the aspects of those plays--that we have chosen to emphasize tell us more about our own assumptions than about the beliefs that informed the responses of Shakespeare's first audiences. Chapter 4, "Boys will be Girls," explores the consequences for women of the use of male actors to play
women's roles. Chapter 5, "The Lady's Reeking Breath," turns to the sonnets, the texts that seem most resistant to feminist appropriation, to argue that Shakespeare's rewriting of the idealized Petrarchan lady anticipates modern feminist critiques of the essential misogyny of the Petrarchan tradition. The final chapter, "Shakespeare's Timeless Women," surveys the implication of Shakespeare's female characters in the process of historical change, as they have been repeatedly updated to conform to changing conceptions of women's nature and women's social roles, serving in ever-changing guises as models of an unchanging, universal female nature.
Chapter 1, "A Usable History," analyses the implications and consequences of the emphasis on patriarchal power, male misogyny, and women's oppression that has dominated recent feminist Shakespeare scholarship, while subsequent chapters propose alternative models for feminist analysis. Chapter 2, "The Place(s) of Women in Shakespeare's World," emphasizes the frequently overlooked kinds of social, political, and economic agency exercised by the women Shakespeare would have known in both Stratford and London. Chapter 3, "Our Canon, Ourselves," addresses the implications of the modern popularity of plays such as The Taming of the Shrew which seem to endorse women's subjugation, arguing that the plays--and the aspects of those plays--that we have chosen to emphasize tell us more about our own assumptions than about the beliefs that informed the responses of Shakespeare's first audiences. Chapter 4, "Boys will be Girls," explores the consequences for women of the use of male actors to play
women's roles. Chapter 5, "The Lady's Reeking Breath," turns to the sonnets, the texts that seem most resistant to feminist appropriation, to argue that Shakespeare's rewriting of the idealized Petrarchan lady anticipates modern feminist critiques of the essential misogyny of the Petrarchan tradition. The final chapter, "Shakespeare's Timeless Women," surveys the implication of Shakespeare's female characters in the process of historical change, as they have been repeatedly updated to conform to changing conceptions of women's nature and women's social roles, serving in ever-changing guises as models of an unchanging, universal female nature.
180 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 2, 2020
The most shocking thing was to find out that some women were financially independent in the 16th century and that no these women weren't of high social status.
January 12, 2017
First book of the new year. Late to the game, as per usual, I just found Rackin last year and am completely smitten with her. She writes my philosophy of teaching Shakespeare beautifully: "What is indisputable, however, is that [Shakespeare] was a writer of remarkable power and that his writing still has an authority unequalled by any other secular texts. For women, therefore, what matters is not what Shakespeare thought and felt about us, but what the words he wrote enable us to think and feel about ourselves" (111). I'm looking forward to continuing my foray into feminist Shakespeare this year and in my scholarship in general.
May 27, 2019
When I saw Henry VI part 1 last year at the Shakespeare Festival, I asked for suggestions to read about the trilogy, since I could not find very many articles about these plays, and this book was the one that was recommended to me. I'm really not sure why, because it has very little mention of these three plays, but it was one of the best secondary works on Shakespeare I have read (and I've read dozens in the last few years.) The book is concerned largely with arguing against other scholars, something I generally don't like, but Rackin's arguments, despite the obligatory nod to postmodernism, are based on facts and common sense rather than theory. She is largely trying to defend the political feminist theory of the 1970's, which emphasized the agency of women that has been partly hidden by male oriented historical writings and documents, against the apolitical academic feminism of the 80's and 90's, which forced the plays (and the historical context) into a straitjacket of "exposing" the texts as arguments for patriarchal ideology.
She begins by admitting that the official ideology of Shakespeare's time was patriarchal and restrictive of women, as has been amply documented in works of the time (largely of course written by clergymen -- what would future historians think about the role of women today if their main sources were fundamentalist preachers and Demopublican politicians?); but she shows (with evidence) that that official ideology was not universally accepted, and perhaps not even the belief of the majority of the population, and that it certainly did not describe the historical actuality. Among the interesting statistics she gives, from various regions of England, are that 16% of all the households were headed by women (perhaps not surprising when one considers that there are far more widows than widowers even today, and that was even more true following the Wars of the Roses and the religious wars and persecutions which followed them under Henry VIII, Edward V, and Mary I); 48% of the known apprentices were girls rather than boys; most of the executors of wills were women (so great a preponderance that the female term "executrix" is often used incorrectly even when the executors were men). She points to texts and drawings showing that women were working outside the home, and even in what are now considered as "traditionally masculine" trades. She argues that the confinement of women to the domestic sphere was just beginning in the seventeenth century, largely due to the rise of Puritanism (and of course, though she doesn't emphasize it, nascent capitalism, which is hard to distinguish from Protestantism at that time). (Another interesting statistic she quotes, although it's not relevant to Shakespeare, is that about 17% of all the mass-market paperbacks sold in North America are Harlequin or Silhouette romances. Ugh)
While many critics interpret the plays as intended to appeal to the insecurities of a male audience, she points out that at least half and perhaps more of the paying customers in Shakespeare's playhouses were women -- even on a purely economic basis, it makes sense to interpret the plays from the perspective of women spectators. She then shows how the standard recent interpretations have twisted the obvious meanings of the plays to fit the thesis that they were arguments for patriarchy. She uses the example of recent interpretations of As You Like It as about the "exchange" of daughters to make alliances among fathers, when in fact none of the marriages in that play are arranged by fathers. She also has good (and iconoclastic) discussions of the use of boys to play women's parts, of the references to breast-feeding in the plays (which was a controversial topic at the time), and new analyses of, among other things, Antony and Cleopatra and Sonnet 130. While she sometimes exaggerates and there is some academic jargon, this is a refreshing antidote to some of the academic articles I have read over the years.
She begins by admitting that the official ideology of Shakespeare's time was patriarchal and restrictive of women, as has been amply documented in works of the time (largely of course written by clergymen -- what would future historians think about the role of women today if their main sources were fundamentalist preachers and Demopublican politicians?); but she shows (with evidence) that that official ideology was not universally accepted, and perhaps not even the belief of the majority of the population, and that it certainly did not describe the historical actuality. Among the interesting statistics she gives, from various regions of England, are that 16% of all the households were headed by women (perhaps not surprising when one considers that there are far more widows than widowers even today, and that was even more true following the Wars of the Roses and the religious wars and persecutions which followed them under Henry VIII, Edward V, and Mary I); 48% of the known apprentices were girls rather than boys; most of the executors of wills were women (so great a preponderance that the female term "executrix" is often used incorrectly even when the executors were men). She points to texts and drawings showing that women were working outside the home, and even in what are now considered as "traditionally masculine" trades. She argues that the confinement of women to the domestic sphere was just beginning in the seventeenth century, largely due to the rise of Puritanism (and of course, though she doesn't emphasize it, nascent capitalism, which is hard to distinguish from Protestantism at that time). (Another interesting statistic she quotes, although it's not relevant to Shakespeare, is that about 17% of all the mass-market paperbacks sold in North America are Harlequin or Silhouette romances. Ugh)
While many critics interpret the plays as intended to appeal to the insecurities of a male audience, she points out that at least half and perhaps more of the paying customers in Shakespeare's playhouses were women -- even on a purely economic basis, it makes sense to interpret the plays from the perspective of women spectators. She then shows how the standard recent interpretations have twisted the obvious meanings of the plays to fit the thesis that they were arguments for patriarchy. She uses the example of recent interpretations of As You Like It as about the "exchange" of daughters to make alliances among fathers, when in fact none of the marriages in that play are arranged by fathers. She also has good (and iconoclastic) discussions of the use of boys to play women's parts, of the references to breast-feeding in the plays (which was a controversial topic at the time), and new analyses of, among other things, Antony and Cleopatra and Sonnet 130. While she sometimes exaggerates and there is some academic jargon, this is a refreshing antidote to some of the academic articles I have read over the years.
April 9, 2021
Great resource and easy to read. I loved her perspective and humour throughout!
December 26, 2024
My compliments to the chef! Phyllis Rackin really cooked with this one.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews