Adelman, Janet. "'Born of Woman': Fantasies of Maternal Power in Macbeth." In Cannibals, Witches, and Divorce: Estranging the Renaissance, edited by Majorie Garber, pp. 90-121. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 216 p.

Explores the tension in Macbeth between male fear of "a virtually absolute and destructive maternal power and the fantasy of absolute escape from this universal condition." In this play male identity is lost when men are faced with powerful maternal characters and regained only when women have been eliminated.

Andresen-Thom, Martha. "Thinking about Women and Their Prosperous Art: A Reply to Juliet Dusinberre's Shakespeare and the Nature of Women." Shakespeare Studies XI (1978): 259-76.

Examines the issue of whether Shakespeare's women characters are either idealizations or relatively realistic depictions of the women of his era.

Barton, Anne. "The Feminist Stage." Times Literary Supplement, No. 3841 (October 24, 1975): 1259.

Review of Juliet Dusinberre's Shakespeare and the Nature of Women that finds fault with her method of argumentation and assumptions about the existence of feminism in the Renaissance.

Case, Sue-Ellen. Feminism and Theatre. New York: Methuen, 1988, 149 p.

Includes discussion of Shakespeare's treatment of women characters in his plays in a larger context of gender issues in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater.

Dunn, Catherine M. "The Changing Image of Woman in Renaissance Society and Literature." In What Manner of Woman: Essays on English and American Life and Literature, edited by Marlene Springer, pp. 15-38. N.Y.: New York University Press, 1977.

Argues that Shakespeare's presentation of female characters represents a progressive change in Renaissance perceptions of women.

Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1975, 329 p.

In-depth study of Shakespeare's presentation of women informed by the theory that the ideals of modern feminism were prevalent in the society for which Shakespeare wrote his plays.

Fitz, Linda T. "What Says the Married Woman?': Marriage Theory and Feminism in the English Renaissance." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature XIII, No. 2 (Winter 1980): 1-22.

Traces the foundations of modern feminism to the English Renaissance by examining changes in the institution of marriage during this period.

Jardine, Lisa. Still Harping on Daughters: Women and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1983, 202 p.

Examines cultural and social issues associated with the portrayal of women on stage in Shakespeare's England.

Jamieson, Michael. "Shakespeare's Celibate Stage." The Seventeenth-Century Stage: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Garald Eades Bentley, University of Chicago Press, 1968, pp. 70-93. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1983, 202 p.

Explores the impact on Shakespeare's presentation of women characters of having male performers enact female roles.

Kirsch, Arthur. Shakespeare and the Experience of Love. London: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 194 p.

Applies both Christian and Freudian interpretations of love relationships between male and female characters in Othello, Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well, and Cymbeline.

Kolin, Philip C. Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography and Commentary. N.Y.: Garland Publishing, 1991, 420 p.

Evaluates the major topics in feminist commentary on Shakespeare, including the question of the extent to which Shakespeare appeared to either challenge or adhere to commonly held contemporary beliefs about women.

Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Green, and Carol Thomas Neely, eds. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983, 348 p.

Collection of essays on a range of feminist issues of scholarly interest relating to Shakespeare's plays.

McLuskie, Kathleen. "The Patriarchal Bard: Feminist Criticism and Shakespeare: King Lear and Measure for Measure." In Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, edited by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, pp. 88-108. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985.

Feminist, psychoanalytic study that focuses on the issues of patriarchy and misogyny in two representative Shakespearean texts.

Orgel, Stephen. "Shakespeare and the Cannibals." In Cannibals, Witches, and Divorce: Estranging the Renaissance, edited by Majorie Garber, pp. 40-66. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 216 p.

Includes discussion of rape, sexual relationships, imperialism, and exploitation of women within the context of colonialism as treated in The Tempest.

Peyre, Henri. "Shakespeare's Women—A French View." Yale French Studies 33 (December 1964): 107-119.

Examines Shakespeare's presentation of women as seen from a non-English perspective.

Rackin, Rhyllis. "Androgyny, Mimesis, and the Marriage of the Boy Heroine on the English Renaissance Stage." PMLA 102, No. 1 (January 1987): 29-41.

Investigates the "changing conceptions of gender, androgyny, and theatrical mimesis … in the representations of five English Renaissance comedies," including Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night.

Speaight, Robert. "Shakespeare's Heroines." Essays by Divers Hands 39, No. 3 (1977): 146-62.

Overview of the broad range of characteristics found in Shakespeare's female characters.

Traub, Valerie. Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama. London: Routledge, 1992, 182 p.

Examines issues of gender, heterosexuality, and homoeroticism in Shakespeare's plays.

Wayne, Valerie. "Refashioning the Shrew." Shakespeare Studies XVII (1985): 159-87.

Contrasts the traditional literary and dramatic role of a shrewish or scolding woman as an agent of discord with the way such characters function in several plays of Shakespeare's. In The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, and The Winter's Tale, Wayne maintains, shrewish women characters act as agents of concord by revealing important truths even though they are bid to be silent.