Women in Shakespeare's Plays

Study Notes

Lady Russell was the first woman in the country to serve as the commander of a fortress.
William Shakespeare was one of those who discovered that angering Russell was not a good idea.
Over the years numerous men who opposed Russell ended up ‘doing time’ in her personal dungeon.
Russell’s crusade brought the theatrical company to the brink of financial ruin.
There was the entrepreneurial Bess of Hardwick (c.1527-1608), the wealthiest female courtier in England, who married a succession of powerful men, four in all, accruing their fortunes.
Lady Penelope Rich (1563-1607) courted controversy not just because she joined her brother, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in a daring rebellion against the royal court in 1601, but because she engaged in an open extra-marital affair with Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, maintaining a second home with him and their five illegitimate children.
In Much Ado About Nothing Beatrice’s status as an orphan, free from strict paternal control, gives her a certain liberty to speak her mind and manage her destiny.
Beatrice is defined by her combative language.
Benedick, with whom Beatrice engages in a “merry war, refers to her as “my Lady Tongue” whose “every word stabs”
The Queen of Fairies, the “proud Titania” of A Midsummer Night's Dream, is no less a challenger of male authority.
In many of Shakespeare’s comedies unruly women are neutralised by marriage or humiliation.
Katherina, in The Taming of the Shrew, is argumentative, disdainful of authority, given to violent outbursts and enjoys persecuting her sister.
Titania appears to meet her match in Petruchio, a suitor from Verona.
Beatrice is eventually married to Benedick and does not speak again after he demands her silence with a kiss.
“Peace, Benedick will stop your mouth”, he says.
Katherina fares a little better than some of the wives in the 'taming' ballads of the period, which may have influenced Shakespeare.
In Renaissance England women were prohibited from acting on the public stage.
Female roles were undertaken by boy actors.
Shakespeare adds a further layer of complexity to the drama of sexual relationships in those plays in which women disguise themselves as men.
Rosalind in As You Like It counters the hackneyed protestations of love traditionally offered by men.
The couple engage in role-play wooing and a mock-wedding ceremony.
Viola's need for disguise – much like Rosalind’s in the forest of