Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,5 (A), University of Heidelberg (Anglistics), course: Proseminar II: 'Comedies in Shakespeare's Time', language: English, abstract: Compared to other writers of his time, Shakespeare introduced an extraordinary amount of deep female characters in his plays. Because Shakespeare lived in a time when men played the major part in society and the role of women was basically limited to the household, one could easily come to the opinion that he was a reformer whose views were ahead of the Elizabethan times 1 . But is this really true? Does Shakespeare criticize the society he lives in by creating these characters, or do they just serve their purpose to make the plays more dramatic? In this paper, I will first give an overview of the role of women in the Elizabethan age and society. After that I will analyse the female characters of three plays we discussed in the course in order to find out if Shakespeare’s views on women diverged from the general view of his time.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: B, King`s College London, language: English, abstract: This essay explores the controversial endings of the following plays: The Taming of the Shrew A midsummer Night’s Dream The Merchant of Venice. Paying particular attention to the language in the last scenes and Shakespeare's enigmatic representation of the female characters with regards to gender roles.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Osnabr ck, 26 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Compared to other writers of his time, Shakespeare introduces an unusual amount of deep female characters in his comedies. His representation of women, in particular the ways in which his female roles are interpreted and put on stage, have become topics of scientific interest. Especially the young women often show vitality, great intelligence, and a strong sense of personal independence, which marks them as "queen s] of comedy" (Palmer 72). Therefore, they are often referred to as Shakespeare's heroines. In the following, I want to show their importance and point out that each heroine, although they all share character traits, has distinct and unique qualities. In doing so, I will occasionally refer to a secondary literature and involve positions of different critics. Though, my attention will be focussed on the plays treated in this research paper: A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night. On the basis of these romantic comedies, I will analyse how the young women are presented and subsequently compare them among one another. In the first part I will look at each heroine individually and introduce their plays. Then I will develop possible similarities between them: Beautiful but unworldly Miranda seems to be totally controlled by her father Prospero, but she shows a strong will in planning a shared future with Ferdinand and she is aware of her superiority to the savage Caliban. Hermia's father similarly chooses her husband. With magic help, however, she and Helena manage to come together with the right partner. Moreover, Helena reveals that she believes in the transformative power of love (MND I.2, 233-4). Viola in Twelfth Night is in a way almost the opposite of Rosalind in As You Like It, although both plays

Using a comparative, feminist approach informed by English and Italian literary and theatre studies, this book investigates connections between Shakespearean comedy and the Italian novella tradition. Shakespeare’s comedies adapted the styles of wit, character types, motifs, plots, and other narrative elements of the novella tradition for the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, and they investigated social norms and roles through a conversation carried out in narrative and drama. Arguing that Shakespeare’s comedies register the playwright’s reading of the novella tradition within the collaborative playmaking context of the early modern theatre, this book demonstrates how the comic vision of these plays increasingly valued women’s authority and consent in the comic conclusion. The representation of female characters in novella collections is complex and paradoxical, as the stories portray women not only in the roles of witty plotters and storytellers but also through a multifaceted poetics of enclosed spaces – including trunks, chests, caskets, graves, cups, and beds. The relatively open-ended rhetorical situation of early modern English theatre and the dialogic form and narrative material available in the novella tradition combine to help create the complex female characters in Shakespeare’s plays and a new form of English comedy.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is the first book to provide a full treatment of Shakespeare's literary and theatrical engagement with the Italian novella and female agency.