Shakespeare and Feminism

Andrea Puskás

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume: VIII. , Issue 2, 2013 p. 23-42, ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2013.8.2.23-42

Abstract

The essay concentrates on the intersection of Shakespeare and feminism and highlights some contemporary trends in Anglo-American feminist Shakespeare criticism. Various feminist approaches to Shakespeare are grouped, categorized and differentiated; inconsistency within feminist criticism of Shakespeare is also emphasised. Special attention is devoted to a historical feminist approach to Shakespeare and to Juliet Dusinberre’s provocative idea that Shakespeare was actually a feminist. The author also examines and analyses various textbased approaches to Shakespeare and outlines their scope of study and focal points. The third scope of study found in feminist criticism of Shakespeare is the highly complex phenomenon of feminist adaptation of Shakespeare. This field includes feminist texts; rethinking, adapting and rewriting Shakespeare by putting women characters and feminist theorization at the centre; and, letting Shakespeare’s women tell their stories differently. Feminist rewriters of Shakespeare evoke feminist criticism’s concern with women as writers, expressing attitudes they hold toward the cultural image of Shakespeare while at the same time, giving voice to their own motives and responses.

Keywords: feminist shakespeare criticism, adaptation, preformance, rewriting, history, text

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

The journal releases peer-reviewed scientific articles, literary studies and art reviews of both Hungarian as well as world literature. It is also a forum for essays on several other arts and intercultural relations. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to the Central European literature and literary studies; the magazine not only publishes the reviews of such studies, but also provides the arena for reflections about them. The journal aims to give an account of the contemporary Hungarian literature of the Hungarian minorities as well as to serve as a cluster for discourses.

As for the structure of the paper, it is usually divided into three main sections. The first part generally deals with the translation of an important foreign abstract literary study. It is followed by the heading of Scientific Studies and the Columns of Critical Analysis. Partitúra regularly publishes thematic abstracts by authors, genres, as well as a literary and artistic phenomenon in focus.