"This is exactly the kind of work, with its synthesis of theory, close reading, and deconstructive performance criticism that many of us in the profession have been looking for." -- Joel B. Altman, University of California, Berkeley "McCandless's book represents an inventive and illuminating account that not only produces a theoretically activated text but also explores a range of options for staging it, turning theoretical into theatrical meanings." -- Barbara Hodgdon, Drake University "The writing is clear, snappy, wonderfully informed with a vivid and experienced theatrical imagination... a book that taught me a good deal about the problem comedies, especially from the vantage point of performance, though the insights into performance are fully and incisively integrated with, and they richly illuminate, formal, thematic, and psychological vantage points on the play." -- Richard P. Wheeler, University of Illinois Composed at a critical moment in English history, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida -- Shakespeare's problem plays -- dramatize a crisis in the sex-gender system. They register a male dread of emasculation and engulfment, a fear of female authority and sexuality. In these plays males identify desire for a female as dangerous and unmanly, females contend and confound traditional femininity. David McCandless's book is a unique and invigorating example of performance criticism that illuminates these difficult, sometimes-overlooked tragicomedies. It is an original and timely contribution to Shakespearean theater scholarship.

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.

An anthology of Shakespeare gender criticism from 1976 to the present, reflecting the redistribution of power in Shakespeare studies and charting the recent history of feminist critical practice. Some essays are sustained readings of single plays, while others trace gender concerns across the playwright's work. Topics include the rape in Lucrece, sexual and social tragedy in Othello, containment of female erotic power in Shakespeare's plays, and same-sex love in Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. For students of literature and feminist studies. Distributed by routledge, Chapman and Hall. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

When adapting Shakespeare's comedies, cinema and television have to address the differences and incompatibilities between early modern gender constructs and contemporary cultural, social, and political contexts. Screening Gender in Shakespeare’s Comedies: Film and Television Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century analyzes methods employed by cinema and television in approaching those aspects of Shakespeare's comedies, indicating a range of ways in which adaptations made in the twenty-first century approach the problems of cultural and social normativity, gender politics, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, the dynamic of power relations between men and women, and social roles of men and women. This book discusses both mainstream cinematic productions, such as Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice or Julie Taymor's The Tempest, and more low-key adaptations, such as Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It and Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the three comedies of BBC ShakespeaRe-Told miniseries: Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This book examines how the analyzed films deal with elements of Shakespeare's comedies that appear subversive, challenging, or offensive to today's culture, and how they interpret or update gender issues to reconcile Shakespeare with contemporary cultural norms. By exploring tensions and negotiations between early modern and present-day gender politics, the book defines the prevailing attitudes of recent adaptations in relation to those issues, and identifies the most popular strategies of accommodating early modern constructs for contemporary audiences.

Cross-dressing in Shakespeare: a context for Elizabethan gender studies

Over the last quarter-century, feminist criticism of Shakespeare has greatly expanded and enriched the range of interpretations of the Shakespearean texts, their original historical location, and subsequent reinterpretation. Characteristically it weaves between past and present, driven by a commitment both to intervene in contemporary cultural politics and to recover a fuller sense of the sexual politics of the literary heritage. Collecting together essays which offer detailed accounts of particular plays with others that take a broader overview of the field, this Casebook showcases the range of critical strategies used by feminist criticism, and illustrates how vital attention to the politics of gender and sexuality is to a full understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean drama.

Curated from the Applause three-volume series, Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends, edited by Neil Freeman, these monologue from Shakespeare's works are given new life and purpose for today’s readers and actors alike. There are twelve titles in this series, which is divided into four categories: monologues for younger men, monologues for older men, monologues for women, and monologues for any gender, the latter being a unique feature since most monologue books are compiled for either men or women. Each book is presented in a smaller format that is more consistent with standard monologue books. Titles in the series: Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The Comedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The Histories Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Any Gender: The Tragedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Women: The Comedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Women: The Histories Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Women: The Tragedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Younger Men: The Comedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Younger Men: The Histories Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Younger Men: The Tragedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Older Men: The Comedies Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Older Men: The Histories Monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio for Older Men: The Tragedies

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Augsburg (Institut für Englische Sprachwissenschaft), course: Myth and Mythology in English Literature, language: English, abstract: William Shakespeare is and has always been one of the most read authors of all times. His stories, books, plays and even poems have been discussed and analysed several times and still play an important role in our society as new interpretations and adaptions surface on a daily basis. Pupils still have to read his plays in school and more and more movie and theatre productions seem to find their way into the world of Broadway and Hollywood. However, with today's impact of multimedia technology on society and applied arts a great amount of people forget to look deeper into the real meaning and the controversial issues that Shakespeare dealt with and tried to portray in his written work. Therefore, there has been the development of gender studies and queer theory that tries to have a closer look at Shakespeare and his use of sexual intentions: "So much sex is readily apparent in Shakespeare [...] [and] every play is shot with sexual puns." (Wells 1) One of Shakespeare's best known and most dealt with publications, in regard to gender studies, is his poem Venus and Adonis from 1593, which marks his first published work ever and incorporates two of the best known figures of Greek mythology that were first dealt with in Ovid's Metamorphoses (cf. Shakespeare 125). However, when it comes to their character traits and their course of action, one can notice that both of them adopt attributes from the opposite sex leading to a confusion in terms of gender roles. Both Venus and Adonis slip into the opposite sex when it comes to their physical appearance as well as to their actions and both of them make it quite clear that the poem does not deal with a story of real love, but with unrequited lust instead. In order to show this, this term paper in hand tries to analyse the main protagonists of the poem Venus and Adonis by focusing on their physical appearance as well as on their behaviour towards one another. Furthermore, the slight differences between the original myth itself by Ovid and Shakespeare's altered version will be taken into account in order to show the meaning and to highlight the functions of Shakespeare's version. Finally, this term paper will focus on two highly important symbols which would be the boar and ultimately Adonis' metamorphosis since both have an important meaning in regard to the portrayal of Venus, the Goddess of Love and her object of desire, Adonis.

This collection of essays by an international group of prominent scholars explores, for the first time, the implications of presentism for issues of sexual orientation and gender in Shakespeare's texts. It offers crucial insights into our present professional, theoretical, political, and social moment, as well as readings of particular texts.

In Gender, Theatre and the Origins of Criticism, Marcie Frank explores the theoretical and literary legacy of John Dryden to a number of prominent women writers of the time. Frank examines the pre-eminence of gender, sexuality and the theatre in Dryden's critical texts that are predominantly rewritings of the work of his own literary precursors - Ben Jonson, Shakespeare and Milton. She proposes that Dryden develops a native literary tradition that is passed on as an inheritance to his heirs - Aphra Behn, Catharine Trotter, and Delarivier Manley - as well as their male contemporaries. Frank describes the development of criticism in the transition from a court-sponsored theatrical culture to one oriented toward a consuming public, with very different attitudes to gender and sexuality. This study also sets out to trace the historical origins of certain aspects of current criticism - the practices of paraphrase, critical self-consciousness and performativity.