Shakespeare's female influences: Queen Elizabeth

Because the timetable for this class was a little more accelerated than I thought, I'm only going to spend a moment examining Queen Elizabeth as an influence on William Shakespeare. I've already discussed Shakespeare's mother, Mary Shakespeare, and his other female relatives (including his wife) to prove that throughout his life the Bard was surrounded by strong and capable women.

Queen Elizabeth was one of England's longest ruling monarchs, and was to reign for most of Shakespeare's adult life. This fact alone displays the simple truth that Elizabeth was a remarkable woman. Her long reign was due to her extreme popularity with her people, as described by Phyllis Rackin:

"Queen Elizabeth brought exceptional political skills to her office, and during the years when Shakespeare was growing up, she was consolidating her remarkable and unprecedented popularity among the vast majority of her subjects.... Queen Elizabeth actively courted her subjects with annual royal progresses through the countryside, so the people who lined the roads could see and speak directly with their monarch during these slow processions." (30)

Besides her popularity, Elizabeth was a very capable politician, especially in regards to religion. After the tug-of-war between the Catholic church and the Protestants (instigated by Elizabeth's father Henry VIII and continued by her sister and predecessor Mary I), Elizabeth created was is called the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, a bill passed by Parliament that reaffirmed the Church of England's separation from Rome as well as allowing aspects from both Protestantism and Catholicism. Of all western European rulers during this time, she was the only one to solve this religious conflict. Says historian Richard Dunn, "This achievement alone is a good enough reason for nominating Elizabeth the ablest politician of her time" (Rackin 32).

Although this is a very brief look at Queen Elizabeth, even the barest of examinations show that she was undoubtedly a huge part of the culture and society of England during Shakespeare's life. Elizabeth was a patron of the arts (discussed briefly here), and Shakespeare would almost certainly have been influenced by her presence in the theaters of London, thus resulting in writing female characters that would have appealed to his queen.

For a more complete summary of Queen Elizabeth's life, visit the Wikipedia page.

Works Cited

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print. 

Literary Imitation

As I mentioned previously, to fulfill the learning outcome of creatively engaging Shakespeare through literary imitation, I want to write a short story from an alternate perspective. Right now I'm considering Katharina from The Taming of the Shrew (the final scene) or possibly Ophelia from Hamlet (either the scene with her singing and flowers or her drowning). I'm trying to focus on women characters since that's the focus of my blog.

Right now, I'd really like people's opinions on these two possibilities, or maybe even a suggestion for a different character. I obviously haven't read all of Shakespeare's plays, so if there are strong female characters that would make for an interesting short story, I would love any advice!

Also, besides writing my short story, just suggestions of independent and witty female characters would be very helpful for the next step of my research, which includes analysis of women in Shakespeare's plays. Thanks!

Shakespeare's female influences: his family and wife

 My focus of the last week or so has been the influence of Shakespeare's female relationships in his writing (in connection with my overall theme of Women and Shakespeare). I began by discussing his mother, Mary Shakespeare, and will now focus for a moment on his female relatives, and how they may have had an influence on the Bard, especially during childhood.


1. More Women than Men

The first thing that should be explained is that the world that William Shakespeare grew up in was not an overwhelmingly masculine one. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Says Phyllis Rackin, "Because most of the women in Shakespeare's family outlived their brothers and husbands, the family in which he grew up was actually predominantly female. In addition to numerous sisters and female cousins, Shakespeare had eight aunts, including one who outlived her husband" (33). It should also be noted that Mary Shakespeare also outlived her husband, like most of the other women in the Shakespeare family.

2. Financial and Legal Independence
As mentioned previously, women in Shakespeare's day were not as powerless as they might appear. For example, "Sixteenth century legal records show that the women in Shakespeare's family controlled considerable property both in land and in money. They also bequeathed property, served as executors of wills, and engaged in litigation designed to defend and further their financial interests" (Rackin, 33). 


Specific examples of women in Shakespeare's family who served as executors of the fathers' or husbands' wills were "Joan Hathaway, the stepmother of William Shakespeare's wife, and Margaret Sadler, the sister of his neighbor and lifelong friend Hamnet Sadler" (Rackin 33). 


3. Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway

Although not as many records remain of Shakespeare's wife as of his mother, we do know that she was an independent and financially secure woman. Since her parents had died before she was married, she inherited a sum of money from her father in his will. Also, since she was an orphan, we can assume that Anne made the choice to marry William independently, proving her ability to make decisions for herself. 


What we can gain form this general knowledge of Shakespeare's family is that throughout his life, he was surrounded by women who were independent and strong. After growing up in such a predominantly female society, it seems almost unthinkable that his upbringing did not in some way influence his writing. Since Shakespeare often wrote such self-sufficient and intelligent female characters, it appears that this is the case. 

Works Cited

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print. 

Fanfiction: a new digital mediation for Shakespeare

I decided to take a break from my serious research for this post and share my experiences with Fanfiction to take a shot at analyzing digital mediations. For those of you unfamiliar with Fanfiction, it's a website where you can post your own writing that you based on other books, plays, movies, TV shows, or even comics. Generally, you post in sections, or chapters, and other readers can leave reviews with helpful criticism or encouragement. There are thousands of writers on this site, and so you can imagine exactly how many reviews and new stories are being posted every day. Just as an example, the Harry Potter section has over 500,000 stories. These range from short stories, poetry, and even epics that literally take years to write.

When in middle school and high school, I have to admit that I was pretty obsessed with Fanfiction. I would spend hours reading other's stories, and then eventually writing my own. This was a major part of why I wanted to be a English major and then go on to be an editor or writer. It was amazing to be able to write and get feedback, as well as help others improve their own writing.

I decided that although I usually spent most of my time in the Harry Potter or Ella Enchanted sections (dorky, I know, but I loved it), I wanted to see what Fanfiction could offer fans of Shakespeare. I followed the links from Plays to Shakespeare, where the Bard has a respectable following of 1,762 stories (this is in comparison to Les Mis, 121, and Oedipus the King, 4). Just glancing through the first page of stories, I saw some really interesting ideas for creatively imitating Shakespeare. For example, one author puts a pirate theme on a female version on Hamlet:

 Hamletta » by Jenna Cassie Herdz

Her father dead, her uncle takes the title of Pirate King aboard the ship the Denmark. But when she finds out how her father really died, revenge fills her heart and mind.

Although this writer probably isn't the next Shakespeare, it's clear that she is very familiar with the text of Hamlet, and has creatively changed the setting and plot to make it her own. Fanfiction is awesome!

This has really inspired me to try and fulfill one of my other learning outcomes, literary imitation. In the next couple weeks, I'm going to write a short story about one of Shakespeare's characters, possibly from a unique point of view, and then post it on Fanfiction and see what kind of response I get. I think this will be a really fun way to creatively engage Shakespeare while also sharing my work with people outside our class. I know that lots of people in this class are doing some sort of literary imitation, and I think this would be an extremely effective way to share besides on our blogs.

Shakespeare's female influences: Mary Shakespeare

Continuing my examination of women and Shakespeare, this post will discuss William Shakespeare's mother, Mary, to show that she may have had an affect on his writing. The mother of England's most famous playwright was not an unknown or insignificant woman. In fact, it may surprise many people to learn that not only was she an heiress to her father's large estate after his death, but that she controlled many legal and financial aspects of the Shakespeare family's life.

1. Property and Law
Mary Shakespeare, even in Elizabethan times, was not the exception when it came to women's legal rights and practices. States Phyllis Rackin:

"Sixteenth century legal records show that the women in Shakespeare's family controlled considerable property both in land and in money. They also bequeathed property, served as executors of wills, and engaged in litigation designed to defend and further their financial interests. Shakespeare's mother, for instance, although she had nine older sisters and two older brothers, inherited the only freehold property her father bequeathed and served as one of his two executors. This was not exceptional. In fact, most of the executors of wills in Shakespeare's England were women rather than men, so much so that scribes sometimes mistakenly used the female form 'executrix' to refer to make executors of wills." (33)

2. Social Status
John Shakespeare (William's father), before being elected to the important position of bailiff in Stratford, was a tenant farmer on the land on Robert Arden, who's daughter he would eventually marry. Besides being a substantial property owner, "Mary's father also possessed an ancient and respected family name" (Rackin 34). Mary's inherited status would have been important to John. In fact, although she was a woman and "her legal status was subordinate to her husband's," as Robert Arden's heiress, "her social status was distinctly superior" (Rackin 34).

3. Economic Life
Mary would have been an active participant in the economic life of the Shakespeare household. There are two ways we can know of her involvement. First, legal records from the Shakespeare's finances show that Mary was fully included in the economic running of the household. This can be documented from records "concerning the sale and conveyance of various pieces of property and litigation about it in which Mary's name appears along with her husband's" (Rackin 34). Second, as discussed previously, women during this period were not uneducated and illiterate. Many housewives knew how to read and had a basic education in order to better run their households. Therefore, it can be inferred that women (and specifically Mary) played an active part in the finances of the family, which were among other wifely domestic responsibilities.

All these details of Mary Shakespeare's life help us to see that as a financially and socially powerful woman, she may have had enormous influence over her son William. Growing up with such a mother, it is possible that William saw women in a more generous light than many of his fellow Elizabethans, and that this influence of his mother's caused him to write female characters that were independent and strong.

Works Cited

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print. 

Sick for the weekend

This is going to be a post full of excuses, but this last weekend I spent feeling very unpleasantly sick. I unfortunately don't have a post planned with specific details about my progress on my project, but I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still on track with my research on women and Shakespeare. This week I will be looking at the women in William Shakespeare's life, specifically his mother, wife, and Queen Elizabeth. My next few posts will explore these women's lives, and show how Shakespeare's personal experiences and relationships with women influenced his writing.

Examples of women's wit and wisdom

So far, I've spent quite a bit of time focusing on the historical and contextual aspect of my main topic, women and Shakespeare, so this post will give a few textual references to support my ideas. I've examined women's roles in Shakespeare's audiences, as well as women's education and learning in 16th century England. Now, I'll discuss two female characters who exhibit the benefits of education. (I've included links to short summaries of the plays in case you aren't familiar with it.)

Portia

The first is Portia from The Merchant of Venice. Disguised as a man, Portia shows her knowledge and learning when she helps her husband through his money troubles, especially with her knowledge of law and finance. Observes Jon Crawford, "Albeit in a man's attire, a woman has saved the day and made not only her husband happy, but also herself" (66). Portia, by displaying her obvious intelligence, has defeated (at least in her own way) the stereotyped attitudes of the Renaissance, which suggest that women are lacking in wit.

A second short example of a woman using her education is Paulina in The Winter's Tale. Acting in the role of a mentor, Paulina is the woman who not only understands the people around her, but can logically argue and prove her points. For example, when Leontes acts unreasonably against his wife, the queen Hermione, Paulina is the one confronts him multiple times. She speaks only the truth to Leontes, logically showing him how his jealousies and tyrannies have caused his madness. Eventually, after the "death" of Hermione, Leontes realizes that Paulina is right. At the end of the play, everything does work out for the royal family, due in part to Paulina's ability to think rationally.

Just by looking at these two characters, it is clear that women of Shakespeare's time were not necessarily the weak and fickle creatures history makes them out to be. As Crawford argues, "A careful look at Shakespeare's drama demonstrates his recognition of Renaissance females as mentally bright and capable of leadership" (63).

Works Cited

Crawford, John. The Learning, Wit, and Wisdom of Shakespeare's Renaissance Women.  Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. Print.

Elizabethan women: smarter than you think

Many students the Renaissance assume the worst for women of the period: unequal rights, inability to inherit, lower social status, and virtually uneducated. While these obviously stem from truth, there were many exceptions to the "rule," and not just in the noble and upper classes either. John Crawford, author of The Learning, Wit, and Wisdom of Shakespeare's Renaissance Women, observes that for many women of the middle-classes, literacy was a necessity. He writes,

A gentlewoman was supposed to read the Bible and conduct family worship in the absence of the father. A good housewife had to consult the almanacs for proper bloodletting time; to discover in the herbal handbook the best medicine for specific illnesses; cookbooks and sewing books were available. (6)

If women didn't have the skill to read, it often limited her abilities to perform her household duties. Therefore, girls (although not allowed at universities and local grammar schools) were instructed by their mothers in a manner similar to the boys. This instruction included religion, morals, manners, speech, and reading. Girls' educations were furthered by instruction in the economy of a household, food preparation, and organization. Also, observes Crawford, "Knowledge of herbs, often thought of as medicine, was sometimes associated with the women of the Middle Ages" (7). This was partially examined in an earlier post, describing Ophelia's madness in Hamlet and how her knowledge of plant life gave a significantly different meaning to the scene.

Besides the existing opportunities for female education during the Renaissance, there were also many writers, male writers, who advocated education for women. In Thomas More's Utopia, the author allows "the education of women on a equal basis with that of men," while Sir Thomas Elyot's The Defense of Good Women supports "the wise training of women in letters and in moral philosophy" (Crawford 10).

Thus we see the undeniable connection between Shakespeare and his educated, female audience. By the end of the sixteenth century, "the feminine audience had reached such proportions that many authors were making a definite and frank appeal to women" (Crawford 13). Not only did women make up a large percentage of the playwright's audiences (as discussed here), but by establishing that the women were literate and intellectually trained, it can be assumed that Shakespeare acknowledged, even respected, the minds and opinions of his women viewers, and wrote plays and characters that would appeal to their senses as well as the men's.

Works Cited

John Crawford. The Learning, Wit, and Wisdom of Shakespeare's Renaissance Women.  Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. 

The Globe Theater: an 11-year-old's view

As a slight tangent from my current topic of Shakespeare's feminine audience, I wanted to share these photos from my trip to London in 2001. When I was younger, I was part of a violin group that traveled abroad and that year we went to England. As part of our stay in London, we toured Shakespeare's Globe Theater, which I remember as an 11-year-old as boring and a waste of time. Now, however, I wish that I'd been able to appreciate the unique experience that I had. We unfortunately weren't able to see a performance there, but the tour was still interesting and I have some great photos to show how Shakespeare's plays must have been seen from an Elizabethan audience.

I know some of our classmates have taken their own looks at the Globe (like Laura), but I thought it would be fun to share my own personal experience with the restored theater.

Entering the Globe's lower gallery (that's my mom in the black and white)

Shakespeare's feminine audience

Continuing with my overall focus on women in Shakespeare, this post will carry on the discussion I began with my introduction to women as audience members in Elizabethan England. By showing that the female audience was substantial and had significant financial and societal power, I hope to prove that Shakespeare was influenced to write strong, witty, and often powerful female characters.

First, it is important to note the fact that many playhouses and playgroups had women patrons. Phyllis Rackin observes that "the offstage presence of women would have exerted a powerful influence upon playscripts." She gives such examples as the Queen's Men, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth,

as well as during the reign of the Stuarts, when "Queen Anne, Lady Elizabeth, and Queen Henrietta all issued patents to the companies that took their names" (46). It seems obvious that if a business venture is being supported by a powerful women, the playwright would take care not to offend their patron by writing disagreeable female characters.

Queen Anne

Lady Elizabeth

Queen Henrietta

Continuing from economic point of view, scholarship has shown that women often made up a large part of a playhouse's audience. Rackin comments on this, writing that "players derived the bulk of their income from public performances" and that they "would have been influenced by the fact that women constituted a sizeable proportion of the paying customers in the public playhouses, perhaps more that half" (46). Again, if a playhouse wanted success, it was a simple matter of catering to their consumers. Although women weren't directly involved in the writing or performing of a play, one can still see their influence on Shakespeare's characters because of their attendance and financial power. Seeing it from this business stance, Richard Levin proposes a similar idea (in his article "Women in the Renaissance Theatre Audience), that although "women were not represented at the production end of this industry, they certainly were at the consumption end, and so probably had some effect upon its products" (174).

One last note: it is clear that there were women of all different levels of society in attendance at the playhouses. That being said, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that while many of Shakespeare's more suggestive lines may make us blush, it would have been something enjoyed by his audience, including women. In fact, according to John Crawford, "writers like Robert Anton and John Davies suggest in their work that women of the time loved bawdy verse, especially verse like Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, and even wrote such verse themselves" (9). Obviously referring to poetry, it is not a stretch to believe the same could be said of Shakespeare's bawdy humor within his plays. Thus we see that women, instead of being embarrassed or even turned away from the playhouses for including such language, were probably the ones most enjoying it. This idea shows that research striving to prove that women did not attend or even like Shakespeare's work because of his sexual humor is false.

Works Cited

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 
Levin, Richard. "Women in the Renaissance Theater Audience." Shakespeare Quarterly. 40.2 (1989): 165-174.

John Crawford. The Learning, Wit, and Wisdom of Shakespeare's Renaissance Women.  Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. 

Mapping my project

I was inspired after seeing Jessica's post outlining what she wanted to accomplish for the rest of the semester. She used the learning outcomes to decide what she needed more work on, and to decide on the goals she wanted to achieve. I'm going to do it a little simpler and just give myself a basic outline for how I want my research project to go. I'm hoping this will give me a little more structure as I continue posting, so that I won't get lost in the sea of blogging.

I'm going to approach my research topic, Women in Shakespeare, from a few different angles. First, I'd like to concentrate on the historical background, including women as part of Shakespeare's audience and women's education in Elizabethan England. Next I will be researching Shakespeare's experiences with women in his life, such as his mother, wife, extended family, and Queen Elizabeth herself. I will hopefully finish up the semester by analyzing a variety of plays and characters with strong female roles to demonstrate that Shakespeare was influenced by all these different factors, and could be classified as a proto-feminist. Here is my tentative schedule for following this plan:

March 6-12: Women as audience

March 13-19: Women's education

March 20-26: Research on Shakespeare's female relationships

March 27-April 9: Analysis of Plays and Characters

April 9- End of class: Shakespeare as a proto-feminist

Besides these more formal approaches, I will also be including a few informal posts to help fulfill the other learning requirements. I plan to share different digital mediations of Shakespeare that I've come across, do my own creative imitation of the Bard's work, and do some close textual readings.

I know it's not incredibly specific, but I've learned its nice to have wiggle room when it comes to research blogging. Ideas tend to change and plans need adjustment, so I'm trying not to close any doors on myself.

One thing I'm hoping to get feedback on is advice about which female characters and plays to focus on for the second half of my research. There are so many plays I haven't read where I know there are wonderfully witty and even powerful women, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know! They don't even have to be major characters, just ones who show a break from the stereotypical obedient and dutiful woman. So far on my list I am considering Katharina, Titania (although I haven't read A Mid-Summer Night's Dream, so help on that would be great too), Lady Macbeth, King's Lear's daughters, and possibly Ariel and Miranda from The Tempest.

I'd appreciate any pointers, thanks!

Flash mobbing is so much fun!

I never thought I would be the type to do it, but being a part of the flash mob performing Romeo and Juliet was a blast! I've always liked performance-type things (I've been in choir, violin groups, plays), but nothing like this before. It was so different than the normal. Although I still had to memorize lines, it was more stressful to remember because I knew people would possibly be looking at me like I was a crazy person. Also, although we practiced enough to get the hang of it, you simply cannot practice a flash mob in the actual setting, so it was a bit of an adventure improvising.

All in all, although it was NOT the way Shakespeare would have performed it (on a stage with every detail worked out and not at a mall with a surprise audience) it was really a fun way to share the Bard's words with the people around us. Although some people still might think we're crazy (ahem, my husband), I really enjoyed performing and would not shy away from doing this again. Kudos to Max and Whitney for putting it on, they did a great job!

Women as audience members

As students studying Shakespeare, we all know that one of the reasons his plays are so long-lasting was his ability to appeal to many different types of people, including women. It is easy to forget that women made up a significant part of Shakespeare's audience. We often focus on how the women's roles were played by men or how the bawdy and racy humor alluded mainly to male viewership. However, several scholars have studied how Shakespeare's plays may have been attended by many women, all from all different classes and distinctions.

The first is Phyllis Rackin, who I've quoted in a previous post. Like I mentioned before, Rackin discusses how in order to make a profit "even the private playhouses catered to women as well as men" and that "they included applewives and fishwives, doxies and respectable citizens, queens and great ladies" (24-25). She also concludes that "because playing was a commercial enterprise, it was in the players' interests to please as many of the paying customers as they could, the women no less than the men" (25). It is my deduction that if a woman was not "pleased" by a play, she would not be a repeat customer. This meant that the playhouse also lost the business of her husband and household, as well as those whom she may have told about the play. A wise business decision would then be to simply make the customer happy.

The second scholar who has researched the idea of women as audience is Richard Levin in his article "Women in the Renaissance Theatre Audience." He quotes three different passages from Shakespeare's plays in order to assert that he "was aware of women as a distinct component of his audience that he had to please" (168). Here's one example from Henry IV:

All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen in such an assembly.

This quote not only shows the power that women had over the opinions of men (at least in the context of a playhouse) but that Shakespeare recognized women's financial power as well.

I will continue this train of thought in my next post, but I hope this gives a good idea of what I'm aiming for in my research. I'll be holding off on thematic and character analysis until I've established some historical and cultural background to base my ideas on, so the next few post will be more about Shakespeare's audience as well as the women in his life.

Works Cited

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Levin, Richard. "Women in the Renaissance Theater Audience." Shakespeare Quarterly. 40.2 (1989): 165-174.

Women on trial

As I was reading the scene from The Winter's Tale, I couldn't help but feel that Hermione was a type for all women of Shakespeare's day. Women were often seen throughout history as the originators of sin, because of Eve. It is very common to read about women as objects of desire, as disobedient wives and daughters, and even as witches. This makes Leontes' irrationality almost make sense: he's simply responding to centuries of prejudice against women. Obviously, we can't entirely excuse his tyrannical and jealous behavior, but I feel tradition gives him a reason to suspect his wife. Part of the fault lies with society.

Hermione, the perfect picture of innocence, chastity, and obedience, is representative of how women were expected to be. In the trial, however, she is made out to be exactly the opposite. Leontes falsely accuses her of treason and adultery, something the audience knows she is innocent of. In general, I believe that this scene perhaps demonstrates that women have been conceived of unfairly in history and in Shakespeare's day, and Hermione's and Paulina's lines give women the voice that they have been forbidden them for centuries. This is particularly interesting since eventually it is proven that Hermione is innocent, showing her true fidelity and obedience to the king.

Paulina's character was also very important to this scene, I believe. Once Hermione has died, there must be someone to defend the cause of women, and so Paulina rebukes the king for his actions (listing the people that have died or suffered because of him), and her speech includes some of the most powerful lines of the scene:

But, O thou tyrant!
Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
Than all thy woes can stir. Therefore betake thee
To nothing but despair. A thousand knees
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting
Upon a barren mountain, and still winter
In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
To look that way thou wert.

Paulina tells it like it is, and receives no punishment for speaking her mind. She is told to be silent by a member of the court, and she herself immediately apologizes for the outburst, but no other punishment is inflicted. I feel that Paulina's speech and her sudden silence are also examples of how women's voices have been oppressed throughout history. She told nothing but the truth, something the king acknowledges when he states that "Thou didst speak but well When most the truth." However, although both she and Hermione spoke well, they were also eventually silenced.

What does this mean coming from a feminist standpoint? Hermione and Paulina are women who are oppressed despite their truthfulness, (Hermione by death and Paulina by the Lord) who are eventually recognized as honorable and steadfast. Shakespeare undoubtedly wrote many strong female characters that exhibit feminist qualities, but this is an example of plot that supports women in general as being true, constant, and loyal.