Search & Browse

Argues that Charlotte Lennox's Shakespeare Illustrated, despite its occasionally irreverent treatment of Shakespeare which breaks from the characteristic bardolatry of the eighteenth century, is important to the discussion of Shakespeare's eighteenth-century critical reception.

Analyzes the relationship between Shakespeare and women in verse, discussing the influence of Elizabeth Montagu's An Essay on the Writing and Genius of Shakespeare (1769), which initiated the use of Shakespeare as an authority in favor of women's writing. Discusses the influence of Montagu and Shakespeare on female writers.

Contends that Princess Izabela Czartoryska's eccentric devotion to Shakespeare deserves scholarly attention, and that her passion for him is both sincere and her essays exhibit evidence that she read his works on her own terms "irrespectively of the sentimental preferences and aesthetic habits she herself, and her age, had."

Explores Robert Armin's writings and their possible influence on Shakespeare's jester/fool characters. See the letter by Peter Spring, 1 February 2013, p. 6.

Explores the relationship between African American women writers and Shakespeare through readings of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (q.v.). "Argues that while the identity politics of both race and gender would indicate an oppositional relationship between Shakespeare and African American women, the responses of black women writers have in fact been far more complex."

In discussing Adelaide Ristori's approach to the role of Lady Macbeth, examines her "acting style, a particular ideal of femininity and a conception of the role and nature of the actress in the second half of the century." Discusses "Ristori's model of Lady Macbeth as a heroic grande dame and provides a comparison with other foreign actresses in Shakespearean roles mainly through theatre critics' reception."

Describes Helena Modjeska's career in the United States and her attempt "to break not only linguistic but also cultural constrain[t]s" in the country. "Reveals that her strife to acknowledge an almost multicultural perspective in artistic renditions of Shakespeare's plays was inseparable from her erosion of the established male hegemony in the American nineteenth-century theatre."

Discusses the life and career of Sadayakko Sada Koyama, the first woman to perform Shakespeare in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century.

Explores "the experiences and reception of [Shakespearean] actresses who toured Australia in the mid-nineteenth century, including Fanny Cathcart, Ellen Kean, Avonia Jones and Lady Emilia Don."

"Examines Shakespeare performances in colonial Bengal in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in relation to the performative engagements of . . . actresses from the lowly social strata of society and red-light areas" and "considers the reception history of Shakespeare in colonial Begal in order to create a referential frame for a critical discussion on prostitutes-actresses."