by Jinny Webber | Nov 1, 2019 | Shakespeare and Fiction |
THE NORNS As the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth await the arrival of Macbeth and Banquo (Act I, scene 3), they chant: Posters of the sea and land, The weird sisters, hand in hand, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to...
by Jinny Webber | Oct 3, 2019 | Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
Ibsen’s play The Doll’s House ends with Nora Helmer closing the door of her house, leaving Torvald and her children behind: the slam heard round the world. It’s unambiguous; she’s out of there. [For the German premier, however, Ibsen was forced to write an alternative...
by Jinny Webber | Jul 26, 2019 | Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
The fashionable Englishman is “the ape of all nation’s superfluities, the continual Masquer of outlandish habiliments.” Thomas Nashe, Summer’s Last Will and Testament, quoted by Jane Ashelford, Dress in the Age of Elizabeth I, 1988 Elizabethan loved costumes....
by Jinny Webber | Jul 6, 2019 | Sex and Gender in, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
As anyone who scrolls through these posts can see, I’ve covered pretty much all the central issues of sex and gender in Shakespeare’s England, from boy actors and stage practice to cross-dressing and homosexuality to women’s literacy and sex by deception, or in other...
by Jinny Webber | Apr 27, 2019 | Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
Basically, “Sex by Deception” describes the bedtrick plots of Shakespeare’s plays Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well. To preserve the chastity of Isabella, the novitiate in Measure for Measure, a substitute sleeps with Angelo—his jilted fiancé Mariana....
by Jinny Webber | Jan 14, 2019 | Boy actors on Shakespeare's stage, Gender fluidity, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England, Shakespeare and Film |
Isaac Butler’s review, All Is True Is a Shakespeare Biopic for the #MeToo Generation, is subtitled “Kenneth Branagh’s new movie is part fact, part fan fiction.” https://slate.com/culture/2018/12/all-is-true-shakespeare-movie-accuracy-kenneth-branagh-hamnet.html...
by Jinny Webber | Oct 31, 2018 | Gender fluidity, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
The bedtrick: sex with a partner who pretends to be someone else. [Introduction, Wendy Doniger, The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade, University of Chicago, 2000.] Two of Shakespeare’s plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure, make use of the plot...
by Jinny Webber | Jul 15, 2018 | Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
“Bedtrick: sex with a partner who pretends to be someone else.” [Introduction, Wendy Doniger, The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade, University of Chicago, 2000.] Two of Shakespeare’s plays, Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well, make use of the plot...
by Jinny Webber | Jul 13, 2018 | Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
My novel Bedtrick deals with marriage, both in Shakespeare’s plays and in the lives of the characters. An enlightening book on the subject is Daniel Swift’s Shakespeare’s Common Prayers, particularly the two chapters on the solemnization of matrimony. Swift argues...
by Jinny Webber | May 14, 2018 | Gender fluidity, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
Johnny held out a satchel, showing me the clothes that near overflowed it: boots and hose, breeches, jerkin and shirt. Holding up a linen band, Johnny smiled. “I’m to tell you to be sure to wrap it tight. And for Mag to cut your hair.” Chapter II, The Secret Player...
