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Feminist Thematics and Shakespearean Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Richard Levin
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Abstract

The thematic approach adopted by a number of feminist critics of Shakespearean tragedy raises serious problems. Some of these are inherent in thematism itself, such as the need to select the facts of the play to fit the theme and to manipulate the theme to fit the facts. But other problems are peculiar to their choice of “gender conflict” or “patriarchy” as the central theme that is the subject of these tragedies and the cause of their outcomes. This leads to the confusion of a necessary condition with a sufficient cause and to difficulties in their treatments of the protagonists, the emotional effects, the tragic genre, and the role of the author, who is supposed to be condemning “patriarchy” in these plays. Further problems arise because of the particular conception of masculinity that some of these critics bring to their readings.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 103 , Issue 2 , March 1988 , pp. 125 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1988

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