Gender Endangered

The book, entitled Gender Endangered: Shakespearean Perspectives is about the socio-cultural ethos of the sixteenth century Early Modern England. Renaissance society was a crucial site of masculinized power. But with the appearance of Queen Elizabeth, a new vision of female self-identity evolved before Shakespeare which inspired him to a great extent. This led him to create a series of bright heroines throughout his literary carrier, who may be seen as protests against the patriarchal Elizabethan society. In contrast, the corruption of Jacobean administration may be a rationale for a dismal projection of masculinity in many of Shakespearean plays. Such recourse to a most unconventional technique appears to be the playwright's trick to radically subvert the traditional gender order. Secondly, Shakespeare had made use of the concept of interchangeability of gender that lay at the very root of the Renaissance concept of man. This may also be a way of the playwright to challenge accepted gender norms.