Women in Shakespeare : A Dictionary
Author(s): Alison Findlay
Women in Shakespeare: A Dictionary is a comprehensive reference guide to Shakespeare and women. An A-Z of over 350 entries explores the role of women within Shakespearean drama, how women were represented on the Shakespearean stage, and the role of women in Shakespeare's personal and professional lives. Alison Findlay examines in detail the language employed by Shakespeare in his representation of women in the full range of his poetry and plays and the implications these representations have for the position of women in Elizabethan and Jacobean society.
Review(s):
“Women in Shakespeare: A Dictionary inventively surveys not only the proper names of female characters but also many sorts of female and feminized ideas and associations in the corpus. The entry on 'woman' demonstrates how much is to be learned from such an approach to a reference book.” —Roland Greene, Stanford University, Recent Studies in Tudor and Stuart Drama
“Alison Findlay’s treatment of Shakespeare’s female characters offers much to digest, largely because of her brilliant decision to treat these figures not only under the named part … but also through extensive cross-references to titles of rank, occupation, social status … names for prostitutes, female anatomy … female icons … female experiences … ‘pivotal moments that shaped or changed women’s subject positions’ … female apparel, and the ‘material representation of women’ on Shakespeare’s stage … As they consult Findlay, students, scholars, and actors will find a rich layering in their efforts to ‘reconstruct’ the identities of Shakespeare’s female parts from an array of ‘fragments,’ the end result being characters who come alive on both page and stage … the Arden Dictionaries have made an enormous contribution. While each volume impresses the reader with Shakespeare’s grasp of a particular topic—wide, deep, and, as experts in various fields have noted, accurate—it is impossible to view all of the dictionaries together and not come away with renewed awe at his commodious erudition.” —Deborah T. Curren-Aquino, Shakespeare Quarterly
ISBN: 9780826458896