Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood [Hardcover]

This is the first scholarly study devoted to Shakespeare's girl characters and conceptions of girlhood. It charts the development of Shakespeare's treatment of the girl as a dramatic and literary figure, and explores the impact of Shakespeare's girl characters on the history of early modern girls as performers, patrons, and authors.List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Girls Included! 1. Peevish and Perverse 2. Isabelle de France, Child Bride 3. Enter Ofelia playing on a lute 4. Lost Girls 5. A Dancing Princess 6. The Lady and Comus 7. My Lady Rachells book 8. Perpetual Girlhood in The Concealed Fancies Conclusion: Girlhood After Shakespeare's Heroines

Williams book emerges as an original and engaging contribution to the current critical conversation around childhood and youth in early modern literary studies. & Williams argument that girlhood is an unstable category constituted through performance is ultimately persuasive, and the strengths of her book are many: it is lucid and compelling, a work of great breadth and impressive scholarship, and a truly absorbing read. (Rachel Prusko, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, Vol. 30, 2017)

Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood opens new doors for future studies of the legacy of Shakespeare and childhood. It is a text invested in Shakespeare studies, social histories, literary theory, and feminist studies that advances each of these fields. Williamss analyses and contextualizations of the works in question offer original ways of understanding the girls in Shakespeares works and how such works went on to influence the modern understanding of girls and girlhood. (M. Tyler Sasser, Early Theatre, Vol. 19 (1), June, 2016)

Williams adds valuable information to the history of girls and performancein medieval entertainments and community festivals, in convent productions, in court masques and closet dramas, and as playwrights and public performerslÓ*