Description
Book SynopsisShakespeare and Gender guides students, educators, practitioners and researchers through the complexities of the representation of gender and sexuality in Shakespeare's work. Informed by contemporary and early modern debates and insights into gender and sexuality, including intersectionality, feminist geography, queer and performance studies and fourth-wave feminism, this book provides a lucid and lively discussion of how gender and sexual identity are debated, contested and displayed in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. Using close textual analysis hand-in- hand with diverse contextual materials, the book offers an accessible and intelligent introduction to how gender debates are integral to the plays and poems, and why we continue to read and perform them with this in mind.Topics and themes discussed include gendering madness, paternity and the patriarchy, sexuality, anxious masculinity, maternal bodies, gender transgression, and kingship and the male body politic.
Trade ReviewThis volume provides a thoughtful approach to a wide range of relevant issues through a combination of close reading, contextual non-fiction materials, and attention to recent performance and film. It will give students the tools they need to engage with the plays and will encourage them to make their own connections across traditional genres and periods. * Ann Thompson, King's College London, UK *
This book revitalizes Shakespeare for contemporary readers. Its case study format situates the plays in both early modern and current performance contexts, setting up an urgent, ongoing dialogue between ideas of sex and gender available to Shakespeare and to us. Teachers and students alike will find it indispensable. * Coppélia Kahn, Professor Emerita of English, Brown University, USA *
Reading
Shakespeare and Gender: Sex and Sexuality in Shakespeare's Drama constitutes a rewarding experience. Aughterson and Grant Ferguson write in a style that is both clear and didactic, which significantly contributes to engage readers from the very first page. * Sederi Yearbook *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements
Introduction Chapter one The Woman’s Voice Key Text:
Much Ado About Nothing, with
The Winter’s Tale Chapter two Kingship and the Male Body politic Key Text:
Richard II, with
Henry IV part I,
Henry V,
Richard III Interlude: Interview with Adjoa Andoh
Chapter three Testing the Marriage Plot: Form, Violence and Gender Key Texts:
The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, All’s Well that ends Well Chapter four Cross-dressing and Gender Transgression(s) Key Texts:
Twelfth Night and
As You Like It Interlude: Interview with Lucy Phelps
Chapter five Gendering Madness Key Text:
Hamlet, with
Two Noble Kinsmen Chapter six Paternity and Patriarchy Key Text:
King Lear, with
The Tempest Chapter seven Sexual Excess: Space, Sex and Gender Key Texts:
Comedy of Errors,
Measure for Measure, Antony and Cleopatra, Pericles Chapter eight Anxious Masculinity Key Texts:
Love’s Labour’s Lost,
Othello,
Cymbeline,
The Winter’s Tale, Chapter nine Maternal Bodies: Female Powers Key Texts:
Henry VI,
All’s Well That Ends Well,
The Winter’s Tale References Index
