William Shakespeare Links More about the role of women in Shakespeare´s works found on Spanish language websites.	The Role of Women in Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare´s Works	Miguel de Cervantes Links More about the role of women in Cevantes´s works found on English language websites.
William Shakespeare Shakespeare – Harold Bloom Lady Macbeth – “Proyecto de Espacio Escénico” Manuel Canga – “Lectura de Macbeth” “El Protagonismo de Ophelia” “El Valor de Hablar (Beatriz en Much Ado About Nothing)	The Role of Women in Miguel de Cervantes And William Shakespeare´s Works The way Cervantes handled women characters revealed his sympathy for women who wished to take their own decisions and argue for their rights. Such sensitive themes as religion, social class and prostitution were handled by Cervantes with grace as his women characters juggled all the injustices of the times with their own situations, making desperate attempts to live their own lives and cry out for recognition. Similarily, Shakespeare´s women characters are perhaps the most famous characters made by any playwright, often characterized as “rebellious feminists”. Shakespeare´s audiences were surely scandalized by feminine protrayals which not only went against all logic of the times but also challenged theater goers to change their mind frames and break taboos of the times. A first look will be taken at two of Cervantes´s women characters, Marcela (the countess who abandons her fortunate living opting to live as a shepherdess) and Dulcinea (the plain peasant women romanticized by Don Quixote) surely hints at the author’s feeling for women in quest of their identity. Critics have explored the roles played by women, leading to further feminist and gender studies to Cervantes for his sensitive method of depicting the women of 17th-century Spain. “Unlike the bulk of his generation, Cervantes invoked great sympathy for women. Although falling short of a “feminist” view, many female characters such as Marcela and Dorotea in Don Quixote speak powerfully arguing for their rights.”[1] Proof of this is how Cervantes turns whores into socially helpless women coerced in to such degrading profession driven by poverty. Maritornes, the whore (of the tavern Don Quixote thought to be a citadel) altered by the innocent stare of Don Quixote, with whom she mistakenly gets into bed after making a date with a mule skinner. Maritornes is the mule skinner’s whore and the tavern warden, but is capable of the sweetest and most tender conversation to "the Ragged Knight of the Sorry Countenance”.[2] Maritornes, the hideous, but caring whore, the mournful, stunning Dorotea married to Don Fernando before he left for Luscinda, and who feigned as Princess Micomicona to get Don Quixote to depart the from the mountains, the rich orphan Marcela who lives in the woods dressed as a shepherdess and rejecting suitors Marcela and beautiful Lela Zoraida who helps the prisoner of war from Leon to escape and marries this man renouncing her father, her religion, and her country getting baptized in Spain – all of them seek a different kind identity mark. In Don Quixote there may exist an association between marriage and prostitution in the option the women adopt in order to socially authorize their lives, either for the deference to authority, (as in the case of Lucinda who marries Cardenio's friend Don Fernando, son of a duke, to soothe her parents, even if truly caring for Cardenio with whom she is united again in the end) or for seeking refuge in Christianity, as in the case of Zoraida. Marcela renounces marriage or courtship living in harmony with nature and keeping away from the advances of suitors. Dorotea who has been betrayed by Don Fernando when he married Lucinda instead felt dishonored so as to go away from her village in cross dressing. She feigns to be the Princess Micomicona, to con Don Quixote. Yet, she basically wants to get married. “Medea's utter hate and detestation for her husband pushed her to truly harm her husband by killing her own children conveying her internal conflict as Medea's motherly makeup made her ask whether or not she should go to such an extent. Eventually her anger prevailed over her calm and forced her into a crazy state to execute one of the most brutal acts a mother could do.”[3] In Don Quixote, Dorotea disguises herself quite a few times—from a man to a woman and ultimately to a princess. Zoraida also undergoes a cultural duality, leaving her familiar world, for the quest of a new identity. Cervantes’s female characters live with the Christian notions of hope showing them the way. Zoraida’s defies patriarchal authority because of a Christian religious quest and not for physical lust. Behind Dorotea’s revenge plan, there is allusion of a woman’s attempt to regain lost honor. The distance that Cervantes created between his female characters and the classical ones whose influence can be traced in Don Quixote, was deliberately made so, in order to make a sense of the present. Don Quixote, albeit apparently giving the impression of an insane, schizophrenic, torn between illusion and reality, according to modern studies, is a character who sticks to his reasons, however convoluted. Expressing his idea of the peasant girl (Aldonza Lorenzo) whom he refers to as Dulcinea of El Toboso, he says to Sancho: “For what I want of Dulcinea del Toboso she is as good as the greatest princess in the land. For not all those poets who praise ladies under names which they choose so freely, really have such mistresses. . . .I am quite satisfied. . . to imagine and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is so lovely and virtuous.”[4] This indicates that for Don Quixote it is of lesser significance whether the girl is really Dulcinea of El Toboso or not. This suggests an idea of love that is pragmatic. The expression “For what I want of (her)” generates a sense of frankness, a precise point to make, sort of a professional deal stressing love’s terms and conditions, a kind of love that blends with Don Quixote’s poetic love, a love that stresses on usefulness. Dulcinea seems to satisfy Don Quixote’s own ideal of love, and his love for her is a way of attaining his gallant actions needed for a Knight Errant. Despite the fact that the love projected here is a purpose-driven emotion, the novel depicts it as exclusive and outstanding. Thus Don Quixote’s sense of exactitude is well admired. But Don Quixote, from a modern feminist view appears as a male, macho. Especially when he says, “It is impossible that there could be a knight-errant without a lady, because it is as proper and natural for them to be in love as for the sky to have stars. I can warrant that there has never been a knight-errant without amours in any history written, for the mere fact of being without them would prove that he was not a legitimate knight”. [5] Shakespeare, one of the most famous and well read playwrights in English literature, has created several different women characters—Cleopatra, Juliet, Beatrice, Viola and others – who are still remembered. These women characters have different qualities that actually give us a peep in the choice of the characterization that Shakespeare creates. Shakespeare’s women characters are perhaps the most famous characters made by any other playwright. They are called by several different terms by the critics such as, “unruly women” “the female wild” and the “outlaws”. Shakespeare goes to every other detail to give his women characters a fresh look. They hold a special place in his plays and without them perhaps the work may not be considered complete. The critics have often called the women characters unruly, who believe in living life on their own terms. Some of them also believe that Shakespeare’s characters are rebellious feminists. “Shakespeare’s heroines rebelled against the men and the society in their attempt to rule or being broke down by a social arrangement mostly involving men.”[6] There is another point to note about Shakespeare’s women characters that were in his plays when Elizabeth I was on the throne. Critics believe that during the reign of Queen Victoria, the plays of Shakespeare were framed particularly by keeping in mind the female audience or readers. There was no single passage in the play which could violate feminine sensibilities. Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife in Shakespeare’s most popular play Macbeth, is the most famous and fearsome female character. She is not a feminine symbol in the play but a masculine one. She is an immensely ambitious woman. She is an unruly woman, lusty for power and greedy for position. The character of Lady Macbeth as framed by Shakespeare is actually the most difficult for the Victorian age to take in. In the beginning itself, the audiences find her making the plot of Duncan’s murder. She has no weaknesses in her character and is strong and ruthless about her thoughts. She understands the situations around her completely and knows that she has to force her husband Macbeth to commit murder. Lady Macbeth is so adamant abut her plans that at a point she even wants to shed her feminism to so that she can execute the murder herself. In the words of Lady macbeth’s husband--she has a masculine soul living in a female body that associates masculinity with violence and lust for power. She has the ability to control her husband with noteworthy efficiency, and she can overrule all his doubts, protests and hesitations about committing the murder. She even questions his manhood again and again to make him feel that he has to kill to prove himself. After the murder, Lady Macbeth uses her will and strength to pacify her husband’s nervousness. She portrays a more tragic role than Macbeth as ambition causes her slow slide into madness more stoutly.[7] Therefore, he feels the guilt of the crime even stronger. In the end of the play, once the guilt takes her over completely, the sensibility of Lady Macbeth becomes her weakness, which drags her into the darks of life, unable to cope with the siutation. As she kills herself ostensibly, this indicates how she was completely unable to deal with the guilt of the crime. Cleopatra is the most popular character created by Shakespeare in the plays Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. She was the ruler of Egypt who succeeded in solidifying her grip on the throne by consummating a link with Julius Caesar. Caesar was charmed by Cleopatra and she became his mistress, despite the thirty years age difference between them. She gave birth to a son, named Caesarion, about whom Cleopatra claimed Caesar was the father. She wanted Caesarion to become his heir, but Caesar refused. It is believed that when Caesar was assassinated, Cleopatra was present along with Caesarion. After Caesar’s assassination, Cleopatra got involved with Mark Anthony, who spent a great time with her in Alexandria, upsetting the people back home in Rome. She gave birth to his twin children and Antony married her in 37 BC. In the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Antony's forces had to face the Romans in a naval battle fought off the coast of Actium. According to a popular story about the war, Cleopatra was also present there along with her fleet and when she saw that the fleet of Antony is not well equipped to be able to face the far superior forces of the Romans, she fled from there. Antony too left the battle in between to follow her. This, indicates that Cleopatra used her tremendous beauty and charm to control her reign and to protect it from the Romans. Cleopatra is one of the controversial heroines of Shakespeare’s historical plays. Cleopatra is considered the most beautiful of women, who bewitched several men rulers with her physical beauty and attraction. She is a “gypsy” and has immense beauty and open sexuality. Ophelia is a confused female character created by Shakespeare. She is completely controlled by the influences of people around her. This affects her ability to express her deep feelings about anything. She has to hold back her emotions time and again and this results in her going mad. Ophelia is a major influence on Hamlet and also affects his return to sanity. Moreover, she also molds Laertes.[8] Ophelia is not one of the Shakespeare’s strongest women characters as her madness and death are caused due to the pressure exerted by her father and the king on her. When her father dies she looses both her identity and her sanity. Ophelia cannot give up without torturing herself. Her craziness holds base on the mental torture that she develops due to the constraint on her. Her madness and eventual suicide holds a great influence on all other characters in the play. Laertes’s grief at Ophelia’s death makes him plan out the murder of Hamlet. When Gertrude learns about Ophelia’s death, she goes into a state of utter perplexity at the loss of such a nice and innocent person. Beatrice is the witty heroine of the play Much Ado About Nothing. Her character is memorable and is in the original style of Shakespeare. We notice her opposing marriage firmly. She makes her first comment to the messenger about Benedick’s welfare. She asks many questions about him which indicate her growing interest in him which perhaps she did not know about herself. Then, after Benedick and other soldiers arrive, we see her having strong verbal duels with Benedick. The way in which she makes comments about him indicates that they knew each other before. Like Ophelia, Beatrice is also influenced by other characters which can be seen by her emotional engagements with Hero and Claudio. It is quite common for women to have leading roles in the plays of Shakespeare. In romantic comedy plays like Much Ado About Nothing and some tragic plays like Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra, we find Shakespeare’s women characters taking on the other male characters. The women characters of Shakespeare have strong feminine influences and unique personalities which affect the plot and outcome of the play. Even though the plots of the plays are distinct, we find lots of similarities between the women characters. In conclusion, it is interesting to note that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, were ahead of their time and used their feminine characters to make an “informal” protest against the adverse situation suffered by women of the period. In the case of William Shakespeare, not only did some of the women characters take on masculine attitudes, but they also orchestrated plans and plots in order to highlight this shocking distinction. As far as Miguel de Cervantes is concerned, he dared to show sympathy for the plight of women in Spain during the 16^th century, and through his writings, hinted that not only needed but deserved their own identity. Bibliography Book Project on an Ancient Greek Drama Medea by Euripides, retrieved from http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC 040522/Medea/medanindex.htm (accessed June 5, 2007) Brittanica, Importance and Influence of Cervantes, retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/article-215817a (accessed June 5, 2007) Godayol, Pilar. Germanes de Shakespeare. Retrieved from http://www.ub.es/cdona/Lectora_09/23%5B1%5D.%20Ressenya%20 Shakespeare.pdf (accessed June 12, 2007) Hamlet. Retrieved from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet (accessed June 14, 2007) Wilipedia. Retrieved from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth (accessed June 14, 2007) Wirfs-Brock, Jordan. The Duality of Don Quixote´s Characater as Shown Through his Attitutde Towards Dulcinea of El Toboso, retrieved from http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Literature/21L-002-3Spring-2004/BD65867A-5653.4DA4-AE81-B3E1639EE86C/0/donquixote_rewri.pdf	“Teodosia´s Dark Shadow? A study of Women´s Roles in Cervantes´s Las Doncellas”. “Marimachos, Hombrunas, Barbudas: The Masculine Women in Cervantes” “The Duality of Don Quixote” “The Reluctant Companion of Empire: Petrarch and Dulcinea in Don Quixote de la Mancha”. “Recovering the Hetairae: Prostitution in Don Quixote I” “Translating one of the Great Works of Literature” “Coloquio Cervantes”

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[1] Britannica, Importance and Influence of Cervantes, retrieved from

http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/article-215817a (Accessed June 5, 2007)

[2] “Maritornes” Whorish Defense of Rancid Feudalism, Executive Intelligence Review, 2004, retrieved from

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3101maritornes_doc.html (Accessed June 5,2007).

[3] Book Project on an Ancient Greek Drama Medea by Euripides, retrieved from

http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC040522/Medea/medeaindex.htm (Accessed June 10,2007).

[4] Wirfs-Brock, Jordan, The Duality of Don Quixote´s Carácter as shown through his Attitude towards Dulcinea of El Toboso, retrieved from

http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Literature/21L-002-3Spring-2004/BD65867A-5653-4DA4-AE81-B3E1639EE86C/0/donquixote_rewri.pdf (Accessed June 10,2007).

[5] Wirfs-Brock, Jordan, The Duality of Don Quixote´s Carácter as shown through his Attitude towards Dulcinea of El Toboso, Chapter XIII, retrieved from

http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Literature/21L-002-3Spring-2004/BD65867A-5653-4DA4-AE81-B3E1639EE86C/0/donquixote_rewri.pdf , (Accessed June 12,2007).

[6] Godayol, Pilar. Germanes de Shakespeare. Retrieved from

http://www.ub.es/cdona/Lectora_09/23%5B1%5D.%20Ressenya%20Shakespeare.pdf (Accessed June 12, 2007).

[7] Wikipedia. Retrieved from

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth (Accessed June 14, 2007).

[8] Hamlet. Retrieved from

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet (Accessed June 14,2007).