Shakespearean Drama - Women in Renaissance

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Erfurt, course: Shakespearean Drama, language: English, abstract: 1. PREFACEThis term paper has the women of Shakespeare s time in focus with a special interest in the figure of Lady Macbeth in his play Macbeth . My goal to achieve will be to draw a line between the understanding of women in Shakespearean England and his forming Lady Macbeth as a destructive female figure in this drama. Macbeth was written predominantly as a stage play around 1605/06. The significance of gender and sex in this play is most obvious in the conception of Lady Macbeth. In Shakespeare s former plays women had only minor roles with a lesser quantity of speech acts. Although Lady Macbeth still has merely a third of her husband s lines, she is still the second largest role of the play. But focus should not only be laid upon quantity as such. Concerning the reception of Shakespeare s Macbeth, it becomes clear that Lady Macbeth s central role as wife, seductress and passive leader of events make her nearly as important as Macbeth himself. [...]