Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

In Praise Of Antony's Folly: The Triumph Of Foolishness In Shakespeare's Antony And Cleopatra, Michael Anthony Rombola

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Antony and Cleopatra has long been regarded as a play about shame. Underlying this reading there have been several assumptions, namely that Antony's shame is justified and that Cleopatra's influence is destructive. These beliefs are rooted largely in the historical treatment of Cleopatra, particularly that of Plutarch, who advanced the view that the Queen of Egypt destroyed a formerly great man. In this paper, I argue that the opposite is true: that Shakespeare's Cleopatra, far from destroying Antony, actually helps to liberate him from the tyranny of Roman expectation. In the course of my analysis, I examine two competing sets …

Historic Shrouds: A New Voice For Shakespearean Women, Ashleigh E. Weinstock

Global Tides

This article presents, and seeks to remedy, the argument that Shakespeare’s female characters are deprived of equal representation as complex humans through narrative gaps, action relegated to offstage scenes, and reduced opportunities for direct-to-audience speech, mirroring the social hierarchies of early modern gender, which continue to be reflected in modern society.

While this critique is not new, this essay argues that the criticism of these theatrical inequalities is insufficient to remedy their harms. Instead, this author proposes a performance-based, generative model of restorative justice termed the Historic Shroud, which seeks to give voice to sidelined female characters by placing …

The Substance Of Reality: Moral Perfectionism In Shakespeare's Hamlet., David Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through a selection of and close reading of key passages, I offer an interpretation of Hamlet that seeks to illuminate the play as an important work of moral philosophy, and to situate the play within a strand of moral philosophy named moral perfectionism by Stanley Cavell. Indeed, Hamlet is a masterpiece of Renaissance drama, but when read with attention to moral perfectionism, the play yields additional layers of meaning. Hamlet is a “philosophical drama” that navigates the “moral calling of philosophy”—a text that seems to, almost uncannily, elicit the audience to think reflectively, to ask fundamental human questions along …

“Sonnet 29”: The Transcendent Power Of Rich Love, Emily M. Lewan

2025 Symposium

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 29" highlights the journey of the human condition from lowly self-deprecation to high self-sentiments when affected by love. This paper analyzes the poignant fourteen lines penned by William Shakespeare and draws parallels between their sentiment and modern research on love's positive impact on preexisting low self-esteem and self-worth. "Sonnet 29" develops a story of the natural stages from self-deprecation due to low self-esteem into heightened self-worth due to the potent integration of love. Modern, scientific research by Harris and Ulrich, Răşcanu, and Zhang and Hawk, lends credence to the assessment of love's powerful and positive impact on a …

Conformable Kate: Identity And Power In The Taming Of The Shrew, Helen R. Ball

The Confluence

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is often read as an exploration of power dynamics and abuse, leaving readers to question the extent of Katherine’s power and autonomy in her marriage to Petruchio. Some believe Katherine manages to control her husband, Petruchio, while others believe Petruchio successfully 'tames' her. This essay explores such a question and seeks to answer which character holds the most power within the play. Using textual evidence from the play, scholarship from Natasha Korda’s writing on domesticity and commodity structures in Shakespeare's time, and Gary Schneider’s ideas of the public and private sectors of …

False Virtues And Fragile Honor: The Weight Of Reputation In Shakespeare’S Works, Amanda Sheps

Theses and Dissertations

"False Virtues and Fragile Honor: The Weight of Reputation in Shakespeare’s Works" analyzes the intersection between honor and social standing in William Shakespeare's Othello and Much Ado About Nothing, specifically in regards to the gender roles prevalent in the plays' societies. In both plays, women who are perceived as a threat to the prevailing norms of society are ostracized, ridiculed, and may even face violence at the hands of their male love interests. The innocence of Desdemona and Hero, however, calls into question the validity of this cruel treatment. These negative reactions reflect the pressure that men have to preserve …

All That May Become A Man: Dynamics Of Gender And Violence In Macbeth, Lauren M. Schuster

West Chester University Master’s Theses

The text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is rife with the language of gender crisis, with the titular character and his wife struggling against the repressive nature of patriarchal gender norms. It is this conflict between individual gender expression and societal ideals of gender that underscores the play’s central conflict, with Lady Macbeth’s rejection of typical femininity as an inciting force for the murder of King Duncan and the chaos that follows. In my reading of Macbeth, I focus on the rhetoric of material sex and gender performativity. In doing so, I examine what such rhetoric suggests about the patriarchal structures …

Shakespeare’S Portia: A Feminist Icon But Figure Of Hierarchy, Rowan G. Feasel

Endeavors: Mississippi State Undergraduate Research Journal

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Portia achieves a level of agency that few Shakespearean women do with her wealth and wit despite having to conform to her father’s wishes for her marriage with the casket test. Through dressing as a man during Antonio’s trial, Portia even assumes a physical appearance that reflects her skill in gaining influence and gives her more power over the men. Because of her ability to assert control in her home and the courtroom, literary critics often present Portia as a feminist icon. However, Portia restricts other characters like the Prince of Morocco and …

Reflecting On Shakespeare’S Accessibility And Relevance In A Chinese University: The Case For Translanguaging And A Genai-Proficient Educator, Therese P. Abonales

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

This paper reflects on the implementation of an approach that integrates Generative AI (GenAI), specifically the Chinese GenAI model Wenxi Yiyan (also known as Ernie Bot in English), along with translanguaging into the teaching of Shakespearean literature and language instruction.The approach, tested with a group of third-year English majors at Jimei University (JMU), Xiamen, China, using Sonnet 116 as the primary topic, leveraged Wenxin Yiyan using both Chinese and English, to enhance pedagogical strategies, simplifying complex Shakespearean language, instead of mere translation, to make it more accessible and engaging for Chinese English majors. This paper begins by exploring Shakespeare's relevance …

Shadows And Seduction: Exploring The Duality Of Night In Romeo And Juliet, Elizabeth Woelkers

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This essay explores how societal perceptions of night evolved from a time of secret worship to a period fraught with fear and demonic influence. Further, this essay explores Shakespeare's use of night to frame the clandestine romance between Romeo and Juliet, highlighting the lovers' perilous engagement with darkness. By embodying the duality of night within the lovers, Shakespeare underscores the timeless struggle between the purity of light and the seduction of night. Additionally, this duality serves as a cautionary narrative, urging audiences to resist the allure of night's temptation and remain in the true light of God.

Diverse Possibilities Of Shakespeare: Teaching Twelfth Night Through A Queer Lens, Julia Ritzler

Honors Projects

This project seeks to understand the ways in which Queer Theory can be applied to secondary language arts education to enhance students' understanding of identity and gender in literature. For the purposes of this project, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is being used as a case study text. This project includes a thorough analysis of Twelfth Night through a queer lens, a literature review of Queer Theory and educational pedagogy, a block plan and related instructional and assessment materials, a rationale for the block plan, and project limitations and implications for future research. By analyzing scholarly texts and applying the theories within …

Reflection: The Twenty-Line Trap? Shakespeare Enacted By Young Women, Shannon Reed

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Professional actors assemble a toolkit of monologues with an obligatory “Shakespearean monologue” of around 20 lines. But female actors are at a disadvantage, with less than 150 women in a repertoire of over 1,100 characters in Shakespeare’s 37 or more plays. Young female actors (18-22 years old) are even more at a loss, if the powerful and complex older female roles are removed, leaving only a few dozen appropriate speeches. What effect does this limited canon have on such actors? Here, I reflect upon my own participant observer experience as a young woman actor, who received the bulk of my …

Hamlet In Narnia: The Prince And The Poem In Lewis’S Chronicles Of Narnia, Sarah R. A. Waters

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

C.S. Lewis is little-known for his Shakespeare scholarship except perhaps for his lecture “Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem” for the British Academy (1942). This essay begins by discussing Lewis’s approach to the play and his desire to reenchant his audience with the play he had loved as a child, before character-criticism got in the way. It then explores how Lewis takes the Prince and the aspects he found most affective in Hamlet out of the play and explores them, imaginatively, in another world: recasting them “for children” in Narnia. The essay considers Hamlet in The Silver Chair in …

Sacrificial Lambs: The Perils Of Childhood In Shakespeare, Benjamin Sidney Reed

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

“Sacrificial Lambs: The Perils of Childhood in Shakespeare” utilizes childhood studies to read five Shakespearean plays and how they portray child characters in perilous situations such as kidnapping, banishment, and murder. It argues these dangers emulate real circumstances young people faced in the early modern period, including the boy actors playing these roles. The dissertation’s key research questions include how children in these plays exhibit agency in the face of danger, how they resist adult systems of power, and how audiences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may have responded to these portrayals of imperiled and rebellious youths. The Introduction …

Subversion Of Traditional Gender Roles In Macbeth, Olivia Eubanks

Merge

No abstract provided.

“Young In Deed”: Feminine Affect And Agency In Young Adult Shakespeare Adaptations, Juliana Hall

English

Approaching the cultural behemoth that is Shakespeare can be daunting, especially for young audiences; the language is antiquated and can be difficult to understand, and, due in part to the age of these works, the content is often rooted in bigoted ideologies. Young adult (YA) novel adaptations have begun reintroducing readers to Shakespeare, not only significantly enhancing the narratives, but encouraging readers to play with Shakespeare’s language in new, accessible, and exciting ways. By looking at two twenty-first century YA novel adaptations of Shakespeare’s original plays alongside the accompanying source material, I analyze how female protagonists engage with their emotions …

Recognizing Traps And Frightening Wolves: Foxes And Lions As A Representative Of Machiavellian Political Ideology In Shakespeare’S Comedies, Grace A. Powell

Student Scholar Showcase

While William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets have been discussed time and time again over the past few centuries, one topic that has been less traversed is the connection between his Comedies and Niccolò Machiavelli’s political ideologies. This project will explore references of lions and foxes in Shakespeare’s Comedies and the leaders and monarchs within them to determine how beliefs about Machiavelli’s political ideology influenced Shakespeare’s literature and became symbols for leadership and power. This project will be important for gaining historical context on Machiavellian political discourse and how it was represented in the contemporary dramatic literature of William Shakespeare. I …

Richard Iii, The Tudor Myth, And The Transition From Feudalism To Capitalism, Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Over the last 10 years or so there has been a resurgence of interest in the English king Richard III, especially after his remains are found in 2012 after being lost or missing for centuries. Prior to this, there are many publications, reports, and documentaries alluding to a “smear” campaign being conducted against the king by either the Tudor monarchs who succeeded him and/or by their confederates and surrogates. It is alleged that this is done in order to promote and make the Tudor dynasty of the 16^th Century (Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I) appear …

Stomach And Womb: Early Modern Recipes For The Perinatal Woman, Grace E. Beacham

English Theses - Archive

Stomach and Womb examines the recipes from early modern obstetrical treatises and midwifery manuals, revealing an ontology of parturiency that winds through the concurrent Shakespearean plays, Twelfth Night and The Winter’s Tale. Gynecological and obstetrical texts from the era detail how pregnant women were to order themselves after conception with utmost concern for their diet, governing the outputs of their bodies by managing the inputs, the foods they ingested before, during, and after pregnancy and childbirth. Further, the associated images of the stomach and the womb during this time present an essential link between foodways and a construct of …

"Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be:" Ambiguity In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet And A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hannah Murphy

Scripps Senior Theses

My thesis is focused on how and why ambiguity/double meanings within the language of Shakespeare plays occurs, and how this can be adapted into a ballet format as there is no verbal component. As well as why this aspect of the plays is so vital to the portrayal of the characters that to remove it would be to severely reduce the impact of the story. It focuses specifically on the plays and ballets of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet, with the NYC Ballet versions of both as a reference.

“My All The World”: Constance, Motherhood, And Petrarchanism In Shakespeare’S King John, Anne Mcilhaney

Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference

No abstract provided.

“She Never Yet Was Foolish That Was Fair”: Whiteness As Erasure In William Shakespeare’S Othello, Kathryn Croft

Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference

No abstract provided.

Shakespeare’S Prince Of Denmark: Political Pandering In Hamlet, Moriah Theriault

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Shakespeare's Hamlet contains frequent cultural ties and insights into Danish tradition that depict intentional effort to represent Danish culture. These accuracies can be seen in the description of the castle in Elsinore, the deep-seated conflicts between Christian forgiveness and revenge, and the traditional cannon salutes featured in Hamlet. Shakespeare created these connections to Danish culture for a political maneuver to win the favor of King James and his wife, the Royal Queen Anne of Denmark.

"Cabined, Cribbed, Confined": Tyrannical Anxiety And Maternal Power In Shakespeare, Elle J. Nieuwsma

Masters Theses

The tyrannical king, a common trope in Shakespearean plays, is on the surface a powerful and confident character. He is motivated, though, by overwhelming anxiety and fear about losing his power and the freedom he experiences through it. In other words, he suffers from a metaphorical claustrophobia and is terrified of being confined to physical, social, and sexual inadequacy. In order to protect himself and maintain his freedom, the tyrant must project his anxiety onto someone else, and interestingly, the Shakespearean tyrants choose a shared target: mothers.

Through a series of close-readings and analysis, this article explores how several different …

Anti-Woman Invective On The Early Modern Stage: Abuse, Degradation, And Resistance, Savannah Xaver

Dissertations

On the early modern stage, gendered epithets like “strumpet,” “mermaid,” “minx,” “hobby horse,” “courtesan,” “drab,” and “whore” are not just markers of misogyny. Instead, these insults harm the male user as well as their female target. My cross-playwright and cross-genre connections show the complex, wide use and impact of anti-woman terms. A wide-ranging study of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries reveals that gendered insults signify masculine mental decline in tragedies as well as comedies and tragicomedies. In tragedy, the increasingly violent language of male slur users – like, for example, the frustrated Othello, who declares, of his wife, …

Psychological Criticism And Shakespearean Allusions In J.M. Barrie’S Dear Brutus: A Neverland For Adults, Kathryn Alley

Senior Honors Theses

In Peter Pan, Sir James Barrie welcomes readers into Neverland, the realm of eternal youth. Barrie’s lesser-known play, Dear Brutus, ushers audiences into a supernatural garden free of responsibility, reality, and permanence. Referring to Cassius’ words in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the 1917 tragedy explores the consequences of romantic escapism and the seductive power of second chances. Through the lens of Freud’s and Lacan’s psychological criticism, and Barrie’s connection to his might-have-been daughter, Margaret, Dear Brutus unveils the plight of eight mysterious strangers by illustrating that all adults are lost children. Dear Brutus feels in many ways like …

Contagious Animality: Species, Disease, And Metaphor In Early Modern Literature And Culture, Jeremy Cornelius

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation, Contagious Animality: Species, Disease, and Metaphor in Early Modern Literature and Culture, I close read examples of Renaissance drama alongside their contemporary cultural texts to examine anxieties around social differences as constructed and mediated through what I call “contagious animality” in early modern English culture. Animal metaphors circulated anxieties around social differences on the early modern cultural stage in English drama where animality elicits uncertainties about identitarian constructions of difference. In this vein, I close read formal elements and their interactions with early modern culture to argue that animal metaphors transmit modes of speciating difference in …

Don't Say Gay: Love Language In Coriolanus, Patrick Lynch

Dissertations and Theses

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's Roman plays, a sub-genre which also includes Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. The one element these plays have in common is the ideal Roman hero, the civis romanus, who meets a tragic end. These heroes are not generally considered queer as no free Roman male could allow himself, per social indoctrination instilled since youth, to take on a submissive role. However, Caius Martius and the relationship he maintains with Tullus Aufidius could arguably be seen as homoerotic or even, possibly, homosexual. This paper takes a closer look at …

Shakespeare And The Supreme Court: How The Justices Reveal Their Ideologies By Referencing His Works, Rachel Anderson

Honors Projects

The works of William Shakespeare have been referenced many times throughout history, even by Supreme Court justices. Building off of an observation of a mock trial by James Shapiro, this project puts the utilization of Shakespeare from three Court opinions in relation to its context within the play and the opinion to examine what the reference reveals about the authoring justices' ideology. In doing so, this project concludes that the justices utilize Shakespeare's works in their opinions for various reasons, including to infuse their beliefs into their argument. This implies that Supreme Court justices do not base their opinions on …

An Analysis Of Shylock In The Merchant Of Venice, Mark Muhich

Augsburg Honors Review

Because he is Jewish and a shrewd businessman, the Venetians consider him to be an outsider in their cofiununity, but his isolation from the community mav be his way of protecting his Jewishneis. In other words, Shylock fears that non-business interactions with Christians will damage the pride he has in his religion because all the Christians ridicule him. Because he mocks the Christians in Venice, most literary critics believe that Shylock is a literary villain. H. B. Charlton says that Shylock is often interpreted as "an inhuman scoundrel whose diabolical cunning is bent on gratifying a satanic lust for Christian …