# Women in Shakespeare **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 1, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968 "2003-09-01T15:04:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![a\_gherkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@a\_gherkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a_gherkin)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/1 "2003-09-01T15:04:34Z")
i am writing an essay in my english class on the role of women in shakespearean england, and was wondering if anyone could help me regarding the roles that women would have played in drama of the time. i.e villains, heroes. not just with shakespeare but any other plays from the period in which shakespeare would have been living. any help whatsoever would be grand 😃 thank you ``` John ``` ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/2 "2003-09-01T15:15:42Z")
I won’t do your homework for you, but I’ll steer you to a few specific female characters in a few speficic Shakespeare plays that you should be able to write something interesting about: Portia (The Merchant of Venice) Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) Cordelia (King Lear) Katarina (The Taming of the Shrew) These characters have little or nothing in common, but they’re all Shakespeare heroines and strong characters. Read the plays, figure out what yout think of them, and start writing. ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/3 "2003-09-01T15:38:48Z")
Or you could write about the “boys in drag” characters Rosalind ( As you Like it) Violet (Twelth Night) And theres another woman forced to go into hiding and dresses as a boy. For some dumb ass reason I can’t remember her name or the play but her hubby was named Posthumous. Oddly enough I do believe that **Helen Mirren** played all three characters back in the early 80s in PBS productions. I don’t know how old you are **a\_gherkin** but I have always found the underlying theme of women=boys in Shakespeare’s works to be fascinating. Of course, at that time the women WERE played by boys and so it could all be an elaborate in joke that we don’t understand:D I plan to ask Willy first time I see him! ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/4 "2003-09-01T16:01:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by a\_gherkin \* > \*\*i am writing an essay in my english class \*\* Maybe you should some capital letters in your English class. As had been pointed out, women played no part in any Elizabethan thetare, it was illegal for them to appear on stage. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/5 "2003-09-01T16:05:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Krisfer the Cat \* > \*\* > And theres another woman forced to go into hiding and dresses as a boy. For some dumb ass reason I can’t remember her name or the play but her hubby was named Posthumous. > \*\* Imogen, in the play “Cymbeline”. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/6 "2003-09-01T16:20:32Z")
> [@](#): > > And theres another woman forced to go into hiding and dresses as a boy. For some dumb ass reason I can’t remember her name or the play but her hubby was named Posthumous. Imogen, in _Cymbeline_. From the way the OP is phrased, I’m not sure whether **a\_gherkin** is writing about the roles female _characters_ played in drama, or about actual women who were active in the theater world. If it’s the latter, women’s roles in the public theater were limited, but here are a few women you might want to research: – French and Italian actresses (women did act on the Continent) – Aristocratic patrons such as Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne – Upper-class women who sometimes acted in court masques – Actors’ wives, who were responsible for the care-and-feeding of apprentices and no doubt did a few other odd jobs for the theater companies – Elizabeth Cary, the only known female playwright of the period, who wrote _The Tragedy of Mariam_ – Mary Firth, a London transvestite, petty criminal, and folk hero, who was the subject of a play called _The Roaring Girl_ and made a personal appearance on stage at one performance of this play On the other hand, if you’re writing about female characters, **astorian** and **Krisfer the Cat** have already made some good suggestions. You might also want to take a look at _Othello_, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, _Much Ado About Nothing_, and a few plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries; _The Duchess of Malfi_ and _The Roaring Girl_ would be good choices. Bear in mind, though, that there was a huge variety of female characters on the Renaissance stage. You’re not going to be able to talk about all of them, so picking a particular theme (like **Krisfer’s** “boys in drag” idea) is probably the best way to go. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-in-shakespeare/198968/7 "2003-09-01T20:16:11Z")
Like **astorian** said, I won’t do your homework for you, but I’ll be happy to point you in a direction. You’ve already gotten some good recommendations for “typical” subjects; analyzing Portia’s “quality of mercy” speech is a staple of English classes. If you’d like to do something the instructor probably hasn’t seen before, take a look at the character of Volumnia in _Coriolanus._ I regard this as one of the unfairly overlooked plays; it isn’t the masterpiece that _Othello_ and _King Lear_ and so forth are, but there’s no reason it should be as forgotten as it is. And Volumnia is a great character, one of Shakespeare’s supreme political manipulators, cold and shrewd, with the twist that it’s viewed through the lens of motherhood, unique in his canon. The question for interpreting the play: Is she a villain, or not? The upside to this is, again, the instructor isn’t likely to have seen it before, so you’ll get brownie points for doing something non-obvious. The downside is, specifically because it’s non-obvious, and because it’s an overlooked play, there isn’t as much scholarship out there from which you can crib — er, I mean, in which you can do research. 😛