Shakespeare and the Nature of Women

Shakespeare and The Nature of Women , first published in 1975, inaugurated a new wave of feminist scholarship. It claimed that Shakespeare's plays offered a sustained critique of inherited male thinking about women, theological, literary and social. The book argued that the presence of the boy actor in Shakespeare's theatre created an awareness of gender as performance. Almost thirty years on, it continues to be the corner-stone of writing about women in this period and the spring-board for new research.

'Shakespeare and the Nature of Women gives a voice not just to women in Shakespeare but to women in Shakespeare studies. It's a courageous, feisty, intellectually ambitious and beautifully written book that,

having launched the Shakespeare revolution for women a generation ago,

remains just as challenging for readers today. A classic.' - Professor Carol Rutter, Department of English and Theatre Studies, University of Warwick

'First published in 1975, Dusinberre's boldly pathbreaking book helped

establish the field of feminist Shakespeare studies. With its wideranging

attention to gender ideology and to the complex conditions of theatrical

performance on the early modern stage, Shakespeare and the Nature of

Women has continued to influence generations of scholars, readers, and

actors. An insightful and impassioned critic, Dusinberre not only offers

provocative and fresh readings of Shakespeare's plays but has changed the

very terms through which scholars study the theatrical culture of early modern

London.' - Professor Jean Howard, Department of English, Columbia University

'Shakespeare and the Nature of Women is a seminal book in feminist literary criticism and Shakespeare Studies. Written by a critic of international standing, its combination of original scholarship with innovative feminist cultural analysis demonstrated the centrality of a peculiar, even

paradoxical conception of female identity to the Shakespearean dramatic

tradition and established an immensely rich tradition of feminist criticism

of Shakespeare. Its argument is just as fresh, exciting and thought-provoking today as when it was first written. Indeed, Dusinberre's work is of vital importance in current debates about the complex cultural phenomenon of the boy actor.' - Dr Pippa Berry, King's College, University of Cambridge

JULIET DUSINBERRE has lectured and published in Japan, the USA, Australia, Germany, France and Sweden. She is currently editing As You Like It for Arden 3. Other work includes Alice to the Lighthouse (1987) and Virginia Woolf's Renaissance: Woman Reader or Common Reader? (1997). She is a Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge.