Female Bonds in Shakespeare's Plays

The dissertation examines Shakespeare's representations of bonds between female friends, mistresses and servants, and mothers and daughters in the context of early modern discourses on female friendship, focusing specifically on the ways female characters mediate for one another. Although the majority of Renaissance theorists of friendship assumed that women were incapable of forming bonds with each other, we find in Shakespeare's work a complex array of female friendships. Bonds between women in Shakespeare primarily function to elicit and channel female desire towards the appropriate man as defined by the women; depending on the genre, these efforts are met with applause (comedy), uneasiness (problem play), derision and death (tragedy), or acceptance (romance). Shakespeare's female friendships thus function both to support patriarchal ideals (in that women seek heterosexual bonds) and to challenge them (since the women question the mail prerogative to exchange women).

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Keinanen, Nely

Contributors dc:contributor

• Shapiro, Michael

• Theater
• Literature, English

Identifier

(UMI)AAI9314890

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72040