Since I began reading, I noticed that many of the books I read were male-centric. They were written by men, about men, and the women were seemingly missing, over-sexualized, or boring. Until I re-read Shakespeare. Shakespeare was different for me, even in high school, his words started small fires in my soul, and when I took a class on Renaissance literature, that fire completely engulfed me.
The paper entitled "The Duchess, Lady Macbeth and Society" is a comparative analysis of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and Webster's Duchess of Malfi. Two women who wield an incredible amount of power, yet use it so differently. Last fall I submitted this paper to an English honors society that I belong to, to be presented at their yearly conference. Lucky for me, it was accepted. As I scanned over the other papers that had been accepted I looked for people who had written on a similar topic.
I found many people who wrote on Shakespeare, though none giving agency to his female characters. It is this paper that led me to write my thesis, but that is a reflection for another page. Having to defend the women of Shakespeare and prove that they too were engaging, enflamed me in a new way. The fire in me was now concerned about how Shakespeare was taught, theatre, and women.
I submitted this paper to the Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Conference in March 2020. It was accepted and presented in Atlanta, Georgia in 2022
A professor reminded me why I love Shakespeare early in my college career. She didn't just teach him as an historical relic, she taught him as living and breathing and present.
Many educators teach him the same way they teach novels, which is inherently wrong. His work was never meant to be read. It was meant to be watched. Finally, as an adult, I realized why this author resonated so much with me, it was because he bridged the gap between my two first loves; literature and theatre. Shakespeare is no Webster or Jonson, he writes his characters off the page. My senior honors thesis argues that Shakespeare invented the universal female character.
It is a bold concept and I had many professors ask me to re-word my argument since universal is hard to prove. I was, and still am, convinced that Shakespeare did not write constrained characters; he wrote his female characters differently from his male characters. He gave them life, thought, and choice.
This was the biggest project I have ever decided to bite off, and more than once I thought I had no argument to argue. I couldn't give up, I couldn't let Shakespeare's women go on unnoticed, agency-less. It was, and remains to be, very close to my heart. I had to speak up and tell someone. So, I did the one thing I could think of: I wrote.
This process, too, was a little unorthodox but paid off in the end. Fortunately, since I had my argument solidified in my head, I started writing early. I cannot stress this enough, to anyone who may read this and contemplates a thesis, start early! It gives you so much more time to edit and revise and you don't feel the pressure to hurry to the finish line. Since I work in a theatre, it was easy to remind myself why I was writing my paper, why it was important not to dismiss Ophelia or Katherina or Lady Anne, and why it was important to read them as more than extensions of men and sexual foils.
I was tired of narratives and nay-sayers who claimed that there was nothing important in Shakespeare anymore because his work was dated. It was time to remind people that Shakespeare surrounds us and there is a reason.
My inspiration arose from reading my favorite of his plays, Taming of the Shrew, and watching my favorite movie, 10 Things I Hate About You. The adaptation is brilliant, so I decided to look into other adaptations and found my new favorite musical Six, an adaptation of Henry VIII. I received the honor of magna cum laude after my defense. The paper entitled "Shakespeare's Universal Women" is only an excerpt of the whole work.