The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Sisters

Abstract

This book owes a tremendous debt to the friends and colleagues who have supported me over the past ten years. My work on girlhood began with a question in Phyllis Rackin's Shakespeare seminar at the University of Pennsylvania, and if it weren't for her unfailing support as a mentor and advisor, this project never would have come to fruition. It is also better and stronger for the feedback I received from Peter Stallybrass and Rebecca Bushnell, who have always been incredibly generous with their comments and time. As the project has developed, I have been fortunate to have the advice of my fellow scholars at

Culture and the assumptions about appearance and reality: a scientometric look at a century of research

“…The same applies to journalism ( Markham, 2013 ) and literature, and their depicted stories of (in some cases) fictional characters. For instance, the way in which girl characters have appeared in the literary texts throughout the years has contributed to the collective awareness of what “girls” are or are not as the modern society knows it ( Higginbotham, 2013 ). From the previous cluster, it emerged that the cultural differences in the conception of self-shape the way in which people perceive the world.…”

Cavalier and she-majesty: the cultural politics of gender in Jane Cavendish’s poetry

“…At the time of writing, Jane herself was a 'mayde', early modern England's preferred term for a young woman whose marriageability was contingent on her virginity. 33 Given the death of her mother and absence of her father, which put her in the unusual position of heading a household without the cover of a husband's authority, the question of Jane's possible marriage may have been put under suspension in the 1640s. She did not in fact marry until she was in her mid-thirties, well past the typical age for a woman of her rank and much later than her sister Elizabeth, wed in a dynastic union in 1641, aged fifteen.…”

“…In a sequence of twelve poems praising family members and friends, eight are to women, including both her grandmothers and several aunts (pp. [30][31][32][33][34][35]. A further twelve poems are addressed to anonymous women, whose characterisation in the titles as 'an Acquaintance' or 'Noble Lady' frames them in terms of a less intimate set of relations than the familial poems.…”