Text by Magdalena Pypeć
I would like to share some information regarding my upcoming publication: “Literary Criticism as Women’s Rights Activism in Anna Jameson’s Shakespeare’s Heroines” included in Female Voices: Forms of Women’s Reading, Self-Education and Writing in Britain 1770‒1830 (Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté 2022).
Here is a brief abstract of the chapter:
The chapter seeks to examine Anna Jameson’s Shakespeare’s Heroines (1832) through the lens of its feminist dialectics, and to discuss how Jameson deploys Shakespearean play-texts to widen and reformulate the constricting spectrum of female propriety preached in conduct-books and in fiction betraying a strong influence of conduct literature. Resorting to Shakespeare’s moral authority, Jameson weaves into the critical dissection of Portia, Beatrice, Viola, Juliet, Miranda, or Lady Macbeth her own ideas for the legitimisation of women’s participation in the public sphere, professional training and economic self-sufficiency. In other words, Shakespeare’s heroines offer a possibility of various interpretations and enactment of feminineness, and as such can be used as advocates for women’s empowerment through public engagement and professionalisation. Furthermore, this study explores Jameson’s references to two female performers, Sarah Siddons and Fanny Kemble, who were not only hugely influential in popularising Shakespeare’s works on the stage, but also used Shakespeare to establish their own reputations and to further their professional careers.
