Kathleen McLuskie
IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume: VIII. , Issue 2, 2013 p. 3-22, ISSN 1336-7307
DOI: 10.17846/PA.2013.8.2.3-22
Abstract
Katchleen McLuskie’s influential essay is a milestone in the development of feminist criticism of Shakespeare. It argues against the tendency to take the plays as expressing Shakespeare’s own views, and to worry about whether this made him pro- or anti-feminist. The essay argues that attention should rather be paid to the narrative, poetic and theatrical strategies which construct the plays meanings and positions the audience to understand their events from a particular point of view. The essay highlights two Shakespearean plays, King Lear and Measure for Measure from a feminist point of view and outlines the opportunities of the feminist reproduction of the text. It argues that feminist criticism has no point of entry into Measure for Measure, since all the dilemmas of the narrative and sexuality are constructed in completely male terms, therefore, such narrative, theatrical or intellectual pleasures of this text defined in male terms cannot be accepted by a feminist critic. The central hypothesis of McLuskie’s interpretation of King Lear is that the narrative and its dramatization present a connection between sexual insubordination and anarchy, and this connection suggests explicit misogyny. Therefore, the task of a feminist critic is to insist that the alternative to the patriarchal family and heterosexual love is not chaos but the possibilityof new forms of social organisation and affective relationships. McLuskie’s method actively incorporates the assumptions of psychoanalysis as well, and mirrors the plurality and diversity of feminist criticism and political practice.
Keywords: feminism, theatrical strategies, sexual relations, misogyny, social practises, narrative
