Shakespeare's Representation of Women | Linda Woodbridge (essay date 1984)
Linda Woodbridge (essay date 1984)
SOURCE: "Civilian Impotence, Civic Impudence," in Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind, 1540-1620, University of Illinois Press, 1984, pp. 152-83.
[In the excerpt below, Woodbridge contends that transvestite disguise in Shakespeare's plays tends to reinforce, rather than undermine, traditionally perceived differences between the sexes.]
During the 1590s, Shakespeare frequently used transvestite disguise in his plots; other dramatists used it occasionally. It is true that, as Juliet Dusinberre says, [in Shakespeare and the Nature of Women, 1975], "disguise invites the dramatist to explore masculinity and femininity"; it is probable, however, that the feminism resulting from such explorations has been over-estimated. Writing that "Shakespeare's feminism is not optional, to be taken or left according to the critic's taste," Dusinberre notes that "disguise freed...
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