Throughout the period of the Shakespearean stage, there were many plays that led viewers and critics to question sexual identity and gender roles in not just his plays, but many other plays as well. For early modern England at this time, cross-dressing was looked at as a dramaturgical motif, a theatrical practice, and a social phenomenon. “In Shakespeare’s day, a cross-dressed heroine, like any female character also involved a gender switch in the world of the playhouse, for women’s roles were normally assigned to young male apprentices called play-boys” (Shapiro, 1). In each of Shakespeare’s five plays involving a cross-dressing heroine, he tried something different. He cleverly varied each motif in which each play turned out to have different reactions as well as outcomes. All of the heroines, Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Viola in Twelfth Night, all come from aristocratic and wealthy families, were well-educated and courageous enough to disguise themselves in order to enter the masculine world. “Adoption of disguise also implied the inevitability of undisguising, and with it the assurance that even the most assertive heroine, if she were to survive, would eventually resume her female identity and her place within a patriarchal society.” (Shapiro, 65) These cross-dressing heroines are alike through a number of aspects, their voice and costumes being most important. But they are all active and determined rather than passive and submissive, they show their intelligence and capabilities, and although they show their masculinity they still hold their female characteristics and qualities.
The history of female cross-dressing goes back before the 1611 story of Arabella Stuart, who was rela...
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... Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. 179-197. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2002. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Howard, Jean E. "Crossdressing, The Theatre, And Gender Struggle In Early Modern England." Shakespeare Quarterly 39.4 (1988): 418-440. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Myers, Jeffrey Rayner. "'In Nothing Am I Chang'd But In My Garments': Shakespearean Cross-Dressing And The Politics Of Sexual Frustration." Annals Of Scholarship: An International Quarterly In The Humanities And Social Sciences 11.3 (1997): 217-238. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Shakespeare, William, and Keir Elam. Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2008. Print.
Shapiro, Michael. Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 1994. Print.
The play Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare is a 1601 comedy that has proven to be the source of experimentation in gender casting in the early twenty-first century due to its portrayal of gender in love and identity. The play centrally revolves around the love triangle between Orsino, Olivia, and Viola. However, Olivia and Orsino both believe Viola is a boy named Cesario. Ironically, only male actors were on the stage in Shakespeare’s time. This means that Olivia, Viola, and other female characters were played by young boys who still had voices at higher pitches than older males.
Upon reading Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Henry V, I have noticed that the issue of gender ideology and identity has been an intriguing study in both Shakespearean comedies and histories. These traditional Western views have, in a sense deemed which roles are appropriate and socially acceptable, in regards to both males and females. This practice of ‘social typecasting’ has given men and women certain socially acceptable characteristics, which has influenced how they should think and act. In this essay I take an in-depth look regarding how Shakespeare dealt with gender identity, and if certain characters in The Taming of the Shrew and Henry V accepted their socially predetermined gender identity or if they rejected it.
This paper will look at the different conceptions highlighted by Bulman in his article through the use of different methods used by the actors in the play. Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare captures the different conceptions of gender identity and different sexualities within the Elizabethan period.
Howard, Jean. "Cross-dressing, The Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern Eng- land." Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988): 418-40.
Gender roles are one of the most controversial topics in the history of humanity. Some people approve of them, while others disagree with them. Gender roles are defined as “the behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing cultural norms”. There are times throughout history where gender roles were very unfair. However, some individuals still defied them in both open and discreet ways. One of these individuals was the famous literary figure, William Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare may have defied gender roles in some of his other literary works, the scope of this essay will be limited to his stellar play, Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespeare mostly uses three characters to defy gender roles: The Three
Kemp, Theresa D. Women in the Age of Shakespeare. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009. Print.
The nexus of status, gender, and societal roles are consistently topics of interest among people, and can be found throughout the plays of William Shakespeare. More evident in their original production, however, through modern renditions and personal interpretation of readings these topics reoccur often His work dictated specific roles for men and women. Through analyzing said roles one can derive insights regarding the esteem of women and how the relative devaluing of women shaped normal gender roles. However, Shakespeare provides conflicting interpretations, dependent upon the light in which his work is read. Among the possible differing interpretations of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” stands a reoccurring argument throughout history of, men vs. women in a battle of status/power. After reading the play one could make the argument that women are inferior to their counterparts, however, at the same time, the argument could be made that women have more power than men, and both positions be considered accurate.
Cohen, Walter, J.E. Howard, K. Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare. Vol. 2 Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. New York, London. 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-92991-1
Dobson, Michael. “Twelfth Night” in The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
The Impact of Gender on Shakespeare’s Othello. In the book “Gender Trouble” (1990), feminist theorist Judith Butler explains “gender is not only a social construct, but also a kind of performance such as a show we put on, a costume or disguise we wear” (Butler). In other words, gender is a performance, an act, and costumes, not the main aspect of essential identity. By understanding this theory of gender as an act, performance, we can see how gender has greatly impacted the outcome of the play in William Shakespeare’s Othello.
Brown, Steve. 'The Boyhood of Shakespeare's Heroines: Notes on Gender Ambiguity in The Sixteenth Century.' Studies In English Literature 30 (Spring 1990): 243-264.
Neely, Carol Thomas. “Shakespeare’s Women: Historical Facts and Dramatic Representations.” Shakespeare’s Personality. Ed. Norman N. Holland, Sidney Homan, and Bernard J. Paris. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 116-134.
The feminism of Shakespeare’s time is still largely unrecognized. Drama from the 1590’s to the mid-1600’s is feminist in sympathy. The author
7- J.M. Lothian and T.W. Craik, "In troduction," The Arden Shakespeare: Twelfth Night , ed. Lothian and Craik (New York: Routledge, 1991) lvi.
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