Women and Revenge in Shakespeare

Women and Revenge in Shakespeare PDF Author: Marguerite A. Tassi
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 1575911310
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Can there be a virtue in vengeance? Can revenge do ethical work? Can revenge be the obligation of women? This wide-ranging literary study looks at Shakespeare's women and finds bold answers to questions such as these. A surprising number of Shakespeare's female characters respond to moral outrages by expressing a strong desire for vengeance. This book's analysis of these characters and their circumstances offers incisive critical perceptions of feminine anger, ethics, and agency and challenges our assumptions about the role of gender in revenge. In this provocative book, Marguerite A. Tassi counters longstanding critical opinions on revenge: that it is the sole province of men in Western literature and culture, that it is a barbaric, morally depraved, irrational instinct, and that it is antithetical to justice. Countless examples have been mined from Shakespeare's dramas to reveal women's profound concerns with revenge and justice, honor and shame, crime and punishment. In placing the critical focus on avenging women, this book significantly redresses a gender imbalance in scholarly treatments of revenge, particularly in early modern literature.

Women and Revenge in Shakespeare

Women and Revenge in Shakespeare PDF Author: Marguerite A. Tassi
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 1575911310
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Get Book

Book Description
Can there be a virtue in vengeance? Can revenge do ethical work? Can revenge be the obligation of women? This wide-ranging literary study looks at Shakespeare's women and finds bold answers to questions such as these. A surprising number of Shakespeare's female characters respond to moral outrages by expressing a strong desire for vengeance. This book's analysis of these characters and their circumstances offers incisive critical perceptions of feminine anger, ethics, and agency and challenges our assumptions about the role of gender in revenge. In this provocative book, Marguerite A. Tassi counters longstanding critical opinions on revenge: that it is the sole province of men in Western literature and culture, that it is a barbaric, morally depraved, irrational instinct, and that it is antithetical to justice. Countless examples have been mined from Shakespeare's dramas to reveal women's profound concerns with revenge and justice, honor and shame, crime and punishment. In placing the critical focus on avenging women, this book significantly redresses a gender imbalance in scholarly treatments of revenge, particularly in early modern literature.

A Kind of Wild Justice

A Kind of Wild Justice PDF Author: Linda Anderson
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874133196
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This study demonstrates not only that the devices of revenge are structurally useful in comedy, but also that there is a consistent conception of revenge as an ethical social instrument in the comedies of Shakespeare.

The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description


Women of Will

Women of Will PDF Author: Tina Packer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307745341
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Women of Will is a fierce and funny exploration of Shakespeare’s understanding of the feminine. Tina Packer, one of our foremost Shakespeare experts, shows that Shakespeare began, in his early comedies, by writing women as shrews to be tamed or as sweet little things with no independence of thought. The women of the history plays are much more interesting, beginning with Joan of Arc. Then, with the extraordinary Juliet, there is a dramatic shift: suddenly Shakespeare’s women have depth, motivation, and understanding of life more than equal to that of the men. As Shakespeare ceases to write women as predictable caricatures and starts writing them from the inside, his women become as dimensional, spirited, spiritual, active, and sexual as any of his male characters. Wondering if Shakespeare had fallen in love (Packer considers with whom, and what she may have been like), the author observes that from Juliet on, Shakespeare’s characters demonstrate that when women and men are equal in status and passion, they can—and do—change the world.

Shakespeare's Women

Shakespeare's Women PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Serves both as a script for performance and as a text for high school and college theater and English classes. This self-contained script brings together different scenes from Shake­speare's plays to portray women "in all their infinite variety." Two narrators, a man and a woman, introduce and com­ment on these scenes, weaving together the different characters and situations. This book combines literary and theat­rical techniques in examining Shake­speare's women. Its promptbook format provides clear, helpful stage directions on pages facing each of the scenes. Also help­ful are concise glosses and footnotes to define difficult words and phrases plus a commentary to explain each scene in its dramatic context. Other features include sheet music for each song in the play, a bibliography on the topic of women in Shakespeare's plays, and suggestions for directors who wish to stage the play.

Roman Women in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

Roman Women in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries PDF Author: Domenico Lovascio
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501514202
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Roman Women in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries explores the crucial role of Roman female characters in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. While much has been written on male characters in the Roman plays as well as on non-Roman women in early modern English drama, very little attention has been paid to the issues of what makes Roman women ‘Roman’ and what their role in those plays is beyond their supposed function as supporting characters for the male protagonists. Through the exploration of a broad array of works produced by such diverse playwrights as Samuel Brandon, William Shakespeare, Matthew Gwynne, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Thomas May, and Nathaniel Richards under three such different monarchs as Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, Roman Women in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries contributes to a more precise assessment of the practices through which female identities were discussed in literature in the specific context of Roman drama and a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which accounts of Roman women were appropriated, manipulated and recreated in early modern England.

'Frailty, thy name is woman': The depiction of women in The Revenger's Tragedy and in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth

'Frailty, thy name is woman': The depiction of women in The Revenger's Tragedy and in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth PDF Author: Adriana Zühlke
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638591891
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2.0, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the question how women are depicted in English Renaissance drama, exemplified by the women inThe Revenger’s Tragedyand in Shakespeare’sHamletandMacbeth.It shall be examined which functions women in the drama fulfill and which conclusion their status allows. Of particular interest will be the concept of the ‘unruly woman’, who unites characteristics like mysteriousness, seductiveness and inexplicability. The analysis will show that none of the examined characters Gertrude, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, Gratiana, Gloriana, Castiza, Antonio’s wife and the Duchess are shaped plainly but ambivalently. Therefore, no explicitly good or evil female character can be identified. With regard to the widespread misogynistic view on women in the 17thcentury, this speaks for the dramas’ authors. However, various negative human features that are presented as typically female, will be taken into consideration and questioned as the basis for discussing the issue whether the dramatists can be rather regarded as feminists or sexists. Moreover, a short insight into the potential origins of the (male) perception of the Renaissance woman is presented and shall clarify and explain the circumstances, in which rather ‘modern’ matters like woman’s selfperception, ambition and emancipation, self-determination and reputation. The paper’s aim is to expose what the general way of women’s depiction actually is and to investigate if the dichotomy between men and woman can be portrayed in the simplified way of depicting female weakness versus male strength. Furthermore, it shall be focused on the strikingly depicted male superiority and dominance in the plays, its nature, consequences, the connected illusions and, maybe, underlying weaknesses. Additionally, the analysis will focus on questions suggesting themselves such as the discussion of woman’s habitual death in Renaissance drama, the identification of the different angles of depiction and, above all, the inquiry of the thesis if women are really depicted as morally and socially inferior to men and, if yes, whether this can be justified.

Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama

Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama PDF Author: Katharine Goodland
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351936646
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Grieving women in early modern English drama, this study argues, recall not only those of Classical tragedy, but also, and more significantly, the lamenting women of medieval English drama, especially the Virgin Mary. Looking at the plays of Shakespeare, Kyd, and Webster, this book presents a new perspective on early modern drama grounded upon three original interrelated points. First, it explores how the motif of the mourning woman on the early modern stage embodies the cultural trauma of the Reformation in England. Second, the author here brings to light the extent to which the figures of early modern drama recall those of the recent medieval past. Finally, Goodland addresses how these representations embody actual mourning practices that were viewed as increasingly disturbing after the Reformation. Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama synthesizes and is relevant to several areas of recent scholarly interest, including the performance of gender, the history of emotion, studies of death and mourning, and the cultural trauma of the Reformation.

Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy and Early Modern Law

Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy and Early Modern Law PDF Author: Derek Dunne
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137572876
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book, the first to trace revenge tragedy's evolving dialogue with early modern law, draws on changing laws of evidence, food riots, piracy, and debates over royal prerogative. By taking the genre's legal potential seriously, it opens up the radical critique embedded in the revenge tragedies of Kyd, Shakespeare, Marston, Chettle and Middleton.