Shakespeare and the Feminist Manifesto"Rebel women", "outlaws", "the wild female", "the Other": these are some of the provocative terms used by feminist scholars in recent years to refer to Shakespeare's heroines. They helped us take a fresh look at these characters as we reevaluate the position of women in our society. But are Shakespeare's women really undisciplined? It would be anachronistic to believe that it created rebellious feminists in an era that had never heard the term. However, in writing many of his plays with Elizabeth I on the throne, Shakespeare created heroines who operate, rebel, attempt to rule, or are crushed by a social structure largely determined by men. With another queen on the throne in the nineteenth century In Britain, both women and Shakespeare were idealized. During the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), editions of Shakespeare were produced primarily with the female reader or listener in mind. Every passage "that could hurt the sense of feminine delicacy" was cut. Books about Shakespeare's heroines, illustrated with portraits of them, were used to spread ideas of good moral behavior among young women. Mary Cowden Clarke imagined stories about heroines before they entered their plays in Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines. The book covers topics such as sexual assault and postpartum depression that were not readily discussed by mothers of the time. Just as many heroines reveal strong personalities in plays, so many Victorian women were not "angels in the house," as the poet Coventry Patmore called them. The front page of this magazine for w...... middle of paper……e of the 19th century. This early image of Kenny Meadows from 1839 shows her with her arms raised seductively, but fully clothed and corseted like the true Victorian woman. By the end of the century, John W. Waterhouse creates this gorgeous Cleopatra, gazing out from under sensuous eyebrows as she stretches easily on a leopard skin. Without a corset and without a bra, she is the dangerous and seductive woman of the end of the century. Her figure anxiously awaits the New Woman, who is already fighting for university degrees, women's suffrage and a place in the world of work. Each period sees something of its own interests in Shakespeare's works and characters; the Victorians were no exception, nor do we today. It is gratifying to recognize that Shakespeare dramatized many faces of femininity – its “infinite variety” – for his time and for every era since..