{"product_id":"gender-in-play-on-the-michael-shapiro-9780472084050","title":"Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages","description":"Cross-dressing, sexual identity, and the performance of gender are among the most hotly discussed topics in contemporary cultural studies. A vital addition to the growing body of literature, this book is the most in-depth and historically contextual study to date of Shakespeare's uses of the heroine in male disguise--man-playing-woman-playing-man--in all its theatrical and social complexity.\u003cbr\u003eShapiro's study centers on the five plays in which Shakespeare employed the figure of the \"female page\" \u003ci\u003eThe Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eCymbeline. \u003c\/i\u003eCombining theater and social history, Shapiro locates Shakespeare's work in relation to controversies over gender roles and cross-dressing in Elizabethan England.\u003cbr\u003eThe popularity of the \"female page\" is examined as a playful literary and theatrical way of confronting, avoiding, or merely exploiting issues such as the place of women in a patriarchal culture and the representation of women on stage. Looking beyond and behind the stage for the cultural anxieties that found their way into Shakespearean drama, Shapiro considers such cases as cross-dressing women in London being punished as prostitutes and the alleged homoerotic practices of the apprentices who played female roles in adult companies. Shapiro also traces other Elizabethan dramatists' varied uses of the cross-dressing motif, especially as they were influenced by Shakespeare's innovations.\u003cbr\u003e\"Shapiro's engaging study is distinguished by the scope of interrelated topics it draws together and the balance of critical perspectives it brings to bear on them.\" --Choice\u003cbr\u003eMichael Shapiro is Professor of English, University of Illinois, Urbana.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michael Shapiro\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0472084054\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780472084050\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Michigan Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/12\/1996\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 296\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.07lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.94h x 6.01w x 0.96d","brand":"Michael Shapiro","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48112753836287,"sku":"9780472084050","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a2ff19b7-55f2-40a7-b024-f8ad8261448e.jpg?v=1769610711","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/gender-in-play-on-the-michael-shapiro-9780472084050","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}