A Woman's Own Hand Painted

Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone.

In the poem “Self’s the Man” he portrays Man to be more superior to women. His opinion of love’s initial excitement contrasted with the

The author directs some of the phrases to women that are reading the poem. For example line 3-4 ” If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can(Anne Bradstreet).” Basically the author is saying that she thinks her man is the best and no other woman will find a guy as great as him. On the other hand, the letter is referring to one person, his wife. The letter just talks about how he wants his wife to learn how to live without him. The poem talks just about a husband, while the letter includes two kids and a

"When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what you think." These lines, from the ending of Muriel Rukheyser's poem "On Oedipus the King, Myth," comment on the significance of women both in the play and in society. Though the character of Oedipus suggests that women are equal, the issue of the true role of women is brought up in the poem, and is raised in Sophocles' play.

In her poem Guys Like That which is in the book on page 1038 in the textbook, she talks about women’s prospective of men and how a personal experience proves that point. In the first stanza

Whether playfully resolved in the comedies or brutally exposed in the tragedies, at some level, all Shakespeare's works symbolically explore the conflict between male and female, or control and emotion, within society and the individual self (Novy 3); however, it is in the tragedies that Shakespeare moves beyond merely reflecting a woman's need to transcend socially imposed limitations to an in depth exploration of the dangers inherent in a worldview that prescribes the extreme devaluation and expulsion of the feminine in order to maintain masculine power and domination (200). In particular, Shakespeare's Macbeth is a play in which the masculine-centred world of the protagonist metaphorically and literally reflects the miserable alienation of both men and women when a fear of the feminine within society and themselves leads to chaotic disorder and the death of the soul.

It is a well-known fact that the past has not been kind to women’s potential. With stereotypes of virtuousness and what it means to be a proper ‘lady’ still persisting today, it does not have to be imagined how strong of a code it was earlier in history. However, works such as William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” demonstrate the few instances of a female character standing out from the traditional mold of their time. Despite adhering to society's norms at the end of their stories, the female perspective adds credibility to the gender's portrayal while breaking down gender stereotypes. By allowing the female characters to take an active role in the patriarchal society, it enables them to show themselves as potential equals to men.

William Shakespeare was a poet, playwright, and actor, and is often regarded as one of the best writers to have ever lived. He is considered to be the English national poet. He wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets during the late 16th and early 17th century. During this time period, England had an absolute patriarchal society, where males dominated all aspects of life. Women had very few rights and were treated very poorly. However, Shakespeare liked to write plays that challenged traditional thinking and norms. In this paper, I will explore the gender norms/expectations for women during Shakespeare’s time and how he conformed or didn’t conform to these norms in two different plays, Romeo and Juliet and the Merchant of Venice.

In order to understand the effects that ideas of femininity have on literary texts, we must first acknowledge what the term means. Clearly both terms derive from the original sex of the being, whether male or female, and can be similarly tied in with notions of gender, either masculine or feminine, which are said to be constructs, or labels, created by society. However `masculinity' and `femininity' become, on some levels, dislodged from the idea of the biological makeup and gender constructs, and instead tend to be described in terms of discourse. It is not just the sex and gender of a being that determines their actions, but instead their thoughts and opinions.

Shakespeare's depiction of women, and the ways in which his female roles are illuminated and enacted, have become topics of scholarly interest. While scarcely occupying the center of his plays, anomalies include Rosalind and Cleopatra; Shakespeare's heroines encompass a wide range of characterizations and types. From the uncompromising veracity of Cordelia, the swift sagacity of Beatrice and of Kate, and the comprehension of Portia, to the mercilessness of Lady Macbeth, the opportunistic ill-nature of Regan and Goneril, and the devious power of Volumnia. There is so little we know of William Shakespeare the man, but so much we can extract from the readings he has left behind. Jeanne Gerlach, Rudolph Almasy, and Rebecca Daniel once wrote a piece

Challenging her Victorian readers, Elizabeth - the feminist - with her Sonnet, was fighting with the weapon of love and rational. She is talking to her lover Robert, society, men and women in one line, with different messages to be conveyed. However, she is smart enough to give such a concentrated dose of feminist and rebellious ideas and tone – whether consciously or unconsciously - disguised under overwhelming love and passion to present a smooth woman’s love story extremely ‘palatable’ by audience at her

The poem deals with maniacal passions faced by a man who feels he is spurned by the woman he loves, he is also terrified of loneliness and isolation and it appears that she is the only ray of happiness in his life

The last two lines of "Shall I Compare Thee", "So long as men can see,

The poem is about Patmore and how he sets up a model of his wife insisting that that’s how women should be. This woman is held up to many expectations and as a

Elizabethan Era was the time when drama became an important form of entertainment and occupation for the Elizabethans. Shakespeare stands as a colossus in the English literary arena and his plays are considered as the greatest writings. These plays are rich and are suggested works for pursuing women’s studies and gender ideologies. His plays depicted the social status and responsibilities of women in the society. He seemed to support the English renaissance stereotypes of men and women .He also raised questions about the conventional image of men and women, the characteristics that their gender demands, the definition of feminine and masculine, about how both the gender possess both masculine and feminine behaviour, the patriarchy and the roles played by women in men’s lives.