Download or read book The Construction of Femininity and Masculinity in Shakespeare s Macbeth written by Vinzent Fröhlich and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-06 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examination Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Potsdam (Institut f r Anglistik und Amerikanistik), 50 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The title of this paper is "The Construction of Femininity and Masculinity in Shakespeare s Macbeth". As this title suggests, I analyzed how Shakespeare construes female and male identity in Macbeth. As in many Shakespearean dramas the play starts with the destruction of order leading up to a crisis and ending in the restoration of order at the end of the play (Gelfert 32). The political order that is destroyed in the course of the play is King Duncan s natural and fair order which appreciates a unique set of masculine and feminine values. Macbeth murders King Duncan in order to usurp his throne. Macbeth s reign turns Duncan s order into chaos and moral order cannot return to Scotland until the tyrant ruler Macbeth is defeated by troops who fight for the restoration of Duncan s order, through the coronation of his son Malcolm. This essay deals with the question of how Shakespeare shapes female and male characters. As a matter of fact, female and male characters are ultimately involved in the destruction and restoration of Scotland. This involves questions such as: Which historical concepts does Shakespeare use to construe his male and female characters? Does he construe "typical" gender roles? And what happens when gender boundaries are crossed, when men develop feminine traits and women male ones? With special regard to the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, I also analyzed the interaction between the genders. In the course of my analysis, I used the term "gender", originating from Anglo-American feminist discourse, meaning "the social, cultural, and psychological meaning imposed upon biological sexual identity" (Showalter 1-2). Interpreting femininity and masculinity as "gender" constructions allows a more thorough an
Download or read book The Representation of Gender in Shakespeare s Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra written by Verena Schörkhuber and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: A, University of Edinburgh, course: Tragedy, History and Sovereignty in Late Medieval and Early Modern Poetry and Drama, 18 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Building on the assumption that differences between the sexes in tragedy are defined through competing representations of heroism, this paper shall take a closer look at the representation of gender in two premodern tragedies, Shakespeare's Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. The aim of this paper shall be to provide a short introduction to (Shakespeare) feminist criticism, which will be supplemented with an overview of various notable instances of the representation of gender in these two works.
Download or read book Titus Andronicus written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gender Politics in Macbeth written by Katharina Herrmann and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-12 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: Shakespeare's Tragedies - Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, language: English, abstract: Renaissance tragedy does to a large extent deal with common political, religious and social questions of the time. In most cases, authors use tragedy as the place to question and even criticize those issues, and thus use it as a political space. In Jacobean England, society was profoundly hierarchical with the king on top of the state, and the father or husband as head of the family. " W]omen were clearly socially subordinate, and the preponderance of discourse on the gender hierarchy was misogynistic" . Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's late tragedies, written in 1606, and presented at the Globe Theatre later that year. In Shakespeare's plays sex and gender are crucial for defining human identity and political power. In the course of this essay, I will first take a closer look at gender ideology in the English Renaissance and in Renaissance tragedy and see how society justified the social subordination of women, and what kind of behaviour was considered appropriate for women. As Macbeth is a play that hugely builds on gender stereotyping, I will afterwards work out the play's definition of masculinity and femininity in the medieval social context the tragedy is set in, and subsequently analyse the characters of the three witches and king Duncan regarding their hermaphroditism and androgynity, and see whether the blurring of fixed gender roles might be interpreted as an indication that gender politics in Macbeth are unusual for the medieval Scottish context. The main part of this essay will be dedicated to the Macbeths, two strongly individualized characters. I will examine the characters of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth first, take a look at how their ambition leads to their downfall and afterwards discuss whether it i
Download or read book Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender written by Shirley Nelson Garner and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1996-02-22 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While considering Shakespeare's earliest attempts at tragedy in Richard III and Titus Andronicus, this volume covers the major tragic period, giving special attention to Othello.
Download or read book Comic Women Tragic Men written by Linda Bamber and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1982-06-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proceeds from the assumption that Shakespeare, so often perceived as the one writer who appears to have transcended the limits of gender, inevitably writes from the perspective of his own gender. From this perspective, whatever represents the Self is necessarily male; and the Other, which challenges the Self, is female. The author's approach gives us a fresh understanding of both Shakespeare's characters and the structure of the plays. The author defines genre in terms of the nature of the challenge offered by the Other to the Self. Using specific plays and characters of Shakespeare, the author shows how in tragedy the Other betrays or appears to betray the Self; in comedy the Other evades the social hierarchies dominated by versions of the male Self; in romance the Other comes and goes, leaving the Self bereft when she is gone and astounding him with happiness when she reappears. History is defined as a genre in which the masculine heroes confront no challenge from the Other but only from each other, from other versions of the Self. The book consists of a long theoretical introduction followed by chapters on comedy, history, and some individual plays: Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and The Tempest.
Download or read book Blood and Milk written by Savannah Xaver and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Motherhood in Shakespeare's late tragedies consists of an unbalance between feminine and masculine forces. Lady Macbeth and Volumnia from Coriolanus strike readers and critics as intricate and aberrant characters. They stand out as women characters in their respective plays because they embrace masculinity rather than femininity. I argue that Shakespeare purposefully crafted Lady Macbeth and Volumnia to create conflict with the tragic heroes through their speeches and dialogue. Within the masculine filled, warfueled worlds of Macbeth and Coriolanus, a woman must support her male relatives involved in war activities. Not only that, but it becomes a rite of passage for men to dominate women in order to succeed in life and perhaps become more masculine. Lady Macbeth and Volunmnia, however, utilize their strong wills to control and even overpower the men around them. By alluding to their feminine physicality, such as the act of breastfeeding, and combining it with masculine imagery of blood, Lady Macbeth and Volumnia establish dominance and attempt to mute gender. I claim Shakespeare composed the dialogues for each woman to focus on their physical attributes as a tactic to showcase personality and how it relates to gender. The challenging of gender within these tragedies appears dangerous for the men; however, critics argue that Lady Macbeth and Volumnia act out of love or, perhaps, an overindulgence of it. This paper will cite evidence from Macbeth and Coriolanus along with critics' readings to determine why Shakespeare shaped his mother-figure characters this way. Ultimately, I believe the dominant nature of Lady Macbeth and Volumnia leads to their assisting in the demise of Macbeth and Coriolanus.
Download or read book Gender Ambiguity in Shakespeare s Macbeth written by Barbora Sramkova and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-09-16 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 1996 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University Of Wales Institute, Cardiff (Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy), course: Shakespeare's Tragedies, language: English, abstract: Probably the most powerful lines lingering in the reader’s or audience’s memory after experiencing Macbeth are the hero’s words in reaction to the news of the death of his spouse: “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” (V, 5, 23-28) When life signifies nothing, does this play signify anything? However simple the question may seem, the answer is hardly straightforward. Trying to stay away from moralising about vaulting ambition that doesn’t pay in the end I would like to speculate about possible significations of the play, not necessarily connected to the plot, or to put it in another way, examine the possibly significant themes and motives recurrent in the play: ambiguity, uncertainty or indeterminacy of meaning. Equivocation is the term used in the play itself (e.g. the porter scene in III, i) and it well captures the theme of walking the tightrope above the abyss of single, definite meaning on one hand, and the endless proliferation of meaning on the other. One cannot escape the impression that the thematically prominent characters of the play (Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, the witches, the Porter) virtually evade committing themselves to definite meanings.
Download or read book Manhood and Masculine Identity in William Shakespeare s The Tragedy of Macbeth written by Maria L. Howell and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2008 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Maria Howell's Manhood and Masculine Identity in William Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of Macbeth" is an important and compelling scholarly work which seeks to examine the sixteenth century's greatest concern, echoed by Hamlet himself, "What is a man?" In an attempt to analyze the concept of manhood in Macbeth, Howell explores the contradictions and ambiguities that underlie heroic notions of masculinity dramatized throughout the play. From Lady Macbeth's capacity to control and destroy Macbeth's masculine identity, to Macbeth himself, who corrupts his military prowess to become a ruthless and murderous tyrant, Howell demonstrates that heroic notions of masculinity not only reinforce masculine power and authority, paradoxically, these ideals are also the source of man's disempowerment and destruction. Howell argues that in an attempt to attain a higher principle, the means (violence and destruction) and the ends (justice and peace) become fused and indistinguishable, so that those values that inform man's actions for good no longer provide moral clarity. Howell's poignant and timely analysis of manhood and masculine identity in Shakespeare's Macbeth will no doubt resonate with readers today."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Construction of Femininity in Shakespeare s Titus Andronicus written by Sofie Sonnenstatter and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-02-17 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Augsburg, language: English, abstract: Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus is his most gruesome play. It has been harshly criticized for its exaggerated cruelty and was certainly not among his most popular works. However, the play aroused a somewhat greater interest within the field of gender studies and the feminist approach to literature. The simplified, objectified and polarized depiction of the female characters virtually stares the gender-conscious reader in the face; this is an open invitation for closer inspection. Though the virgin-whore dichotomy was quite common in Elizabethan literature, it is carried to extremes in Titus Andronicus. In the following the construction of femininity and the female characters in the play, Lavinia and Tamora, will be analyzed against the background of the perception of femininity in Shakespeare’s time.
Download or read book Shakespeare on Masculinity written by Robin Headlam Wells and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-12-21 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviews Shakespeare's view of masculinity through The Tempest, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and others.
Download or read book Object Lessons The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time written by Eavan Boland and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996-07-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important prose work, one of our major poets explores, through autobiography and argument, a woman's life in Ireland together with a poet's work. Eavan Boland beautifully uncovers the powerful drama of how these lives affect one another; how the tradition of womanhood and the historic vocation of the poet act as revealing illuminations of the other.
Download or read book The Woman s Part written by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stephanie Chamberlain s work on Lady Macbeth and the connected gender issue written by Timo Dersch and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich Didaktik für das Fach Englisch - Literatur, Werke, , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The passage in Macbeth, one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays, where Lady Macbeth, the wife of the main protagonist, is fantasizing about motherhood and infanticide, can be interpreted differently. In traditional interpretations, most of the scholars ascribe her expressions about the topic, to the main “unsex me here”-theme. Because this is the quote, which is the best proof to show how Lady Macbeth tries to mobilize her masculine powers to support the political goal of her husband. But these expressions are more than that. Stephanie Chamberlain, who is a associate professor for English at Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau argues in her work “Fantasizing Infanticide: Lady Macbeth and the Murdering Mother in Early Modern England” ,which was published in 2002, that there can be seen a lot more in Lady Macbeth’s utterances. According to her, the lines including Lady Macbeth’s act one fantasy about motherhood and infanticide express the power mothers have in general, on the one hand because of their ability to break the patrilineal and through that have more political influence than they should have by this act, on the other hand because of their influence on their child in education and the connected communication of values. The following essay will figure out the main themes and thesis of Chamberlain, will give arguments to support it, and tries to give background information and explanations why this discussion nowadays loses importance.
Download or read book Women of Will written by Tina Packer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The construction of masculinity in Shakespeare s Richard II Romeo and Juliet Macbeth Antony and Cleopatra written by Brigitte Lainé and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Shakespearean Drama Women in Renaissance written by Sabine Reich and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2006-05-07 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Erfurt, course: Shakespearean Drama, language: English, abstract: 1. PREFACE This term paper has the women of Shakespeare’s time in focus with a special interest in the figure of Lady Macbeth in his play “Macbeth”. My goal to achieve will be to draw a line between the understanding of women in Shakespearean England and his forming Lady Macbeth as a destructive female figure in this drama. Macbeth was written predominantly as a stage play around 1605/06. The significance of gender and sex in this play is most obvious in the conception of Lady Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s former plays women had only minor roles with a lesser quantity of speech acts. Although Lady Macbeth still has merely a third of her husband’s lines, she is still the second largest role of the play. But focus should not only be laid upon quantity as such. Concerning the reception of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it becomes clear that Lady Macbeth’s central role as wife, seductress and passive leader of events make her nearly as important as Macbeth himself. [...]
