Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Anxieties over a female ruler?!

So Monday after class I just clicked on the link that Professor Burton has posted on the blog, the Shakespeare Reasearch Guide, and I was just kind of browsing around for fun when one particular reference caught my eye. All it said was, “Louis Montrose, in one of the most influential of new historicist essays, related the play's animus against virginity and its depictions of the tamed Amazon Hippolyta and the defeated Titania to imputed male anxieties about the dominance of England's real-life fairy queen, Elizabeth I. (Oxford Companion, Reference, A Midsummer Night Dream)." I tried to find the original article but for some reason couldn't find it in it's entirety... But the part I did find and even just the idea itself was fascinating. It is true that there are multiple 'tamed' women in this play, and these (especially Titania and Hippolyta, as mentioned) could be seen as parallel to Elizabeth. Both are leaders, queens. Both are in their own ways powerful - Titania rules a magic kindgom with many followers, and Hippolyta leads a nation of empowered female warriors. Elizabeth, too, was a powerful ruler, so perhaps Louis Monrose is right and there is a connection there? I think it is a really interesting idea, and I'll keep trying to find the full article!

Like I said, I was only able to find a portion of the original text, but what I did find was very interesting, if anyone wants this is the link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928384?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

2 comments:

  1. I would be so interested to read the rest of this article! The interpretations of Hippolyta and Titania are so varied, I can't decide what I think.

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  2. https://prezi.com/yfqe5m7ahmp4/an-overview-of-shaping-fantasies-figurations-of-gender-and-power-in-elizabethan-culture/

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