Series Editor's Preface Preface Acknowledgements Conventions Abbreviations Introduction Dictionary A-Z entries Bibliography Index
An A-Z of over 350 entries which 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 is Professor of Renaissance Drama and Director of the Shakespeare Programme in the Department of English and Creative Writing, Lancaster University, UK.
This encyclopaedic and critically sophisticated survey of women and
womanhood in Shakespeare offers a uniquely invaluable resource for
students and scholars alike.
*Professor Stanley Wells, CBE, Chairman, The Shakespeare Birthplace
Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK*
One of the strengths of Findlay's lexicon is that it includes
gendered role types and their attributes... The result is a richly
studded picture both of individual women and of societal and
linguistic mores.
*The Times Literary Supplement*
The impressive range and intricate detail make Women in
Shakespeare: A Dictionary immensely valuable to both seasoned
Shakespeareans and students alike; the dictionary format enables
quick reference while still retaining critical integrity.
*Routledge ABES*
This is a rich and inventive book, offering much more than the
dictionary function suggested by its title. It is astonishingly
thorough and some of its entries… are in effect mini essays… an
impressive achievement and a very rewarding read.
*Shakespeare Quarterly*
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.
*Shakespeare Quarterly*
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.
*Recent Studies in Tudor and Stuart Drama*
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