Author: Monica Marie Maillet Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
In Aeschylus's Agamemnon and Shakespeare's Macbeth, values of gender and sexuality are implicated in the signifying processes of the stage. In particular, both plays suggest an inherent link between a certain kind of "performative" language (words that materialize) and the gender undecidability of the speaker. As Clytemnestra persuades Agamemnon and speaks incantatory words, her language seems able to produce (rather than merely describe) effects. The play suggests that this power to kill things with words lies precisely in the gender undecidability of Clytemenstra (whom the Watchman describes as both "woman" and "man"). The chorus appropriate to the male that which is manifest, the "acting" of violent intentions, while to the female they assign expectation, visionary experience, that which may be unfulfilled or "come to nothing." The androgynous Clytemnestra's language crosses this boundary between the visionary and the manifest; her expectations are enacted and they become real. Macbeth similarly links the androgyny of the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth to their capacity to speak determinative language. The "bearded" witches' prophesies come true, while the language of the "unsexed" Lady Macbeth materializes, though in uncanny ways she seems not to have anticipated. As both plays trace this dynamic of the curse (or determinative language), they dramatize also the related visionary language that occurs in the "intermission," a moment of arrest between the murderous purpose and its effect. Such visionary language is anticipatory; it refers to action and images that are still undecided, ambiguous, fluctuating. Characters such as Lady Macbeth disparagingly link this visionary language to the female, recognizing its capacity to interfere with the accomplishment of a murderous purpose. But perhaps what speaks in such an "intermission," as language halts and reviews the injuries of the past, is tragedy itself.
Author: Verena Schörkhuber Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3638767493 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 37
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: A, University of Edinburgh, course: Tragedy, History and Sovereignty in Late Medieval and Early Modern Poetry and Drama, 18 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Building on the assumption that differences between the sexes in tragedy are defined through competing representations of heroism, this paper shall take a closer look at the representation of gender in two premodern tragedies, Shakespeare's Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. The aim of this paper shall be to provide a short introduction to (Shakespeare) feminist criticism, which will be supplemented with an overview of various notable instances of the representation of gender in these two works.
Author: Barbora Sramkova Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3640427009 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 9
Book Description
Essay from the year 1996 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University Of Wales Institute, Cardiff (Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy), course: Shakespeare's Tragedies, language: English, abstract: Probably the most powerful lines lingering in the reader’s or audience’s memory after experiencing Macbeth are the hero’s words in reaction to the news of the death of his spouse: “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” (V, 5, 23-28) When life signifies nothing, does this play signify anything? However simple the question may seem, the answer is hardly straightforward. Trying to stay away from moralising about vaulting ambition that doesn’t pay in the end I would like to speculate about possible significations of the play, not necessarily connected to the plot, or to put it in another way, examine the possibly significant themes and motives recurrent in the play: ambiguity, uncertainty or indeterminacy of meaning. Equivocation is the term used in the play itself (e.g. the porter scene in III, i) and it well captures the theme of walking the tightrope above the abyss of single, definite meaning on one hand, and the endless proliferation of meaning on the other. One cannot escape the impression that the thematically prominent characters of the play (Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, the witches, the Porter) virtually evade committing themselves to definite meanings.
Author: Vinzent Fröhlich Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3638057062 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 85
Book Description
Examination Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: The title of this paper is “The Construction of Femininity and Masculinity in Shakespeare`s Macbeth". As this title suggests, I analyzed how Shakespeare construes female and male identity in Macbeth. As in many Shakespearean dramas the play starts with the destruction of order leading up to a crisis and ending in the restoration of order at the end of the play (Gelfert 32). The political order that is destroyed in the course of the play is King Duncan`s natural and fair order which appreciates a unique set of masculine and feminine values. Macbeth murders King Duncan in order to usurp his throne. Macbeth`s reign turns Duncan`s order into chaos and moral order cannot return to Scotland until the tyrant ruler Macbeth is defeated by troops who fight for the restoration of Duncan`s order, through the coronation of his son Malcolm. This essay deals with the question of how Shakespeare shapes female and male characters. As a matter of fact, female and male characters are ultimately involved in the destruction and restoration of Scotland. This involves questions such as: Which historical concepts does Shakespeare use to construe his male and female characters? Does he construe “typical” gender roles? And what happens when gender boundaries are crossed, when men develop feminine traits and women male ones? With special regard to the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, I also analyzed the interaction between the genders. In the course of my analysis, I used the term “gender”, originating from Anglo-American feminist discourse, meaning ”the social, cultural, and psychological meaning imposed upon biological sexual identity” (Showalter 1-2). Interpreting femininity and masculinity as “gender” constructions allows a more thorough analysis of the various processes involved in the “making” of men and women. Whilst the term “sex” suggests that children naturally acquire the appropriate masculine or feminine behavioural norms of their society, the term “gender” can also indicate that some people feel discrepancies between their “anatomical sex and experiential sense of gender and sexuality” (Showalter 2). After a short historical introduction about the origins of the play, I analyzed the masculine world of chivalry that the play takes place in. Understanding the world of chivalry, its values and codes is required as most of the male characters are construed as chivalrous knights serving in the corps of King Duncan. Enjoy!
Author: Katharina Herrmann Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3640770765 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 30
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: Shakespeare’s Tragedies – Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, language: English, abstract: Renaissance tragedy does to a large extent deal with common political, religious and social questions of the time. In most cases, authors use tragedy as the place to question and even criticize those issues, and thus use it as a political space. In Jacobean England, society was profoundly hierarchical with the king on top of the state, and the father or husband as head of the family. “[W]omen were clearly socially subordinate, and the preponderance of discourse on the gender hierarchy was misogynistic” . Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s late tragedies, written in 1606, and presented at the Globe Theatre later that year. In Shakespeare’s plays sex and gender are crucial for defining human identity and political power. In the course of this essay, I will first take a closer look at gender ideology in the English Renaissance and in Renaissance tragedy and see how society justified the social subordination of women, and what kind of behaviour was considered appropriate for women. As Macbeth is a play that hugely builds on gender stereotyping, I will afterwards work out the play’s definition of masculinity and femininity in the medieval social context the tragedy is set in, and subsequently analyse the characters of the three witches and king Duncan regarding their hermaphroditism and androgynity, and see whether the blurring of fixed gender roles might be interpreted as an indication that gender politics in Macbeth are unusual for the medieval Scottish context. The main part of this essay will be dedicated to the Macbeths, two strongly individualized characters. I will examine the characters of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth first, take a look at how their ambition leads to their downfall and afterwards discuss whether it is possible to talk about an inversion of the traditional gender roles since especially Lady Macbeth oversteps the boundaries of appropriate female behaviour and is, at least in the beginning, the more powerful character of the two spouses.
Author: Sabine Reich Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3638498263 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 16
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Erfurt, course: Shakespearean Drama, language: English, abstract: 1. PREFACE This term paper has the women of Shakespeare’s time in focus with a special interest in the figure of Lady Macbeth in his play “Macbeth”. My goal to achieve will be to draw a line between the understanding of women in Shakespearean England and his forming Lady Macbeth as a destructive female figure in this drama. Macbeth was written predominantly as a stage play around 1605/06. The significance of gender and sex in this play is most obvious in the conception of Lady Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s former plays women had only minor roles with a lesser quantity of speech acts. Although Lady Macbeth still has merely a third of her husband’s lines, she is still the second largest role of the play. But focus should not only be laid upon quantity as such. Concerning the reception of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it becomes clear that Lady Macbeth’s central role as wife, seductress and passive leader of events make her nearly as important as Macbeth himself. [...]
Author: Linda Bamber Publisher: Stanford University Press ISBN: 0804765693 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 223
Book Description
This book proceeds from the assumption that Shakespeare, so often perceived as the one writer who appears to have transcended the limits of gender, inevitably writes from the perspective of his own gender. From this perspective, whatever represents the Self is necessarily male; and the Other, which challenges the Self, is female. The author's approach gives us a fresh understanding of both Shakespeare's characters and the structure of the plays. The author defines genre in terms of the nature of the challenge offered by the Other to the Self. Using specific plays and characters of Shakespeare, the author shows how in tragedy the Other betrays or appears to betray the Self; in comedy the Other evades the social hierarchies dominated by versions of the male Self; in romance the Other comes and goes, leaving the Self bereft when she is gone and astounding him with happiness when she reappears. History is defined as a genre in which the masculine heroes confront no challenge from the Other but only from each other, from other versions of the Self. The book consists of a long theoretical introduction followed by chapters on comedy, history, and some individual plays: Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and The Tempest.
Author: Anwar Elsharkawy Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3668350450 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 34
Book Description
Scientific Essay from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: M.A, , course: Discourse Analysis, language: English, abstract: Women in "Macbeth" (i.e., Lady Macbeth and the Witches) speak a strange language that is very similar to what women seek today. This language can be described as antilanguage: a language by which women can direct, control, and dominate men. This paper introduces a contradictory statement to the current views in discourse analysis, which indicate that women are powerless, trivial, dominated, and sexual objects (Andersen, 1988, Chaika, 1982; Lakoff, 1975) by showing women as powerful, serious, and dominating as men. In doing so, it focuses on the recent views of discourse, power, and women, taking Shakespeare's "Macbeth" as a field of application by analyzing Lady Macbeth’s turns of talk.
Author: Monica Marie Maillet
Author: 
Author: Verena Schörkhuber
Author: Barbora Sramkova
Author: Vinzent Fröhlich
Author: Katharina Herrmann
Author: 
Author: Sabine Reich
Author: Linda Bamber
Author: Anwar Elsharkawy