Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood

"Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood is the first scholarly study devoted entirely to Shakespeare's girl characters. Revealing the dramatic and cultural centrality of the young girl in early modern English culture, and highlighting the 'girl' as a distinctive category in Shakespeare, this book locates Shakespeare's girl characters and representations of girlhood at a pivotal moment in the history of girlhood as an identity and social condition. Illuminating Shakespeare's girl characters in their relationship to earlier historical discourses and representations, and charting the development of Shakespeare's construction of the girl as a dramatic and literary figure throughout his career, Deanne Williams demonstrates that Shakespeare's girl characters are consistently and self-consciously invested in performance, from playing dramatic and musical parts, to performing public and domestic roles. Calling attention to the influence of Shakespeare and his girl characters on girl performers, patrons, andplaywrights, Williams makes an original contribution to the history and culture of the early modern girl"--

Product details

• Authors: D Williams, D. Williams, Deanne Williams
• Publisher: Palgrave UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 23.04.2014
• EAN: 9781137024756
• ISBN: 978-1-137-02475-6
• No. of pages: 288
• Series: Palgrave Shakespeare Studies; Palgrave Shakespeare Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Europa, B, Literatur: Geschichte und Kritik, Literaturwissenschaft, allgemein, Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory, Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter, Poetry, Literary studies: poetry & poets, Literature: history & criticism, Literary studies: general, Literary theory, Culture—Study and teaching, Poetry and Poetics, European Literature, British literature, British and Irish Literature, Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, Palgrave Literature Collection, Literature—Philosophy, Early Modern and Renaissance Literature, Literature, Modern