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Shakespeare in Love: A Woman in a Man's Profession

            Topic Question: Queen Elizabeth turns up on stage at the end of Shakespeare in Love and says 'I know something of a woman in a man's profession'. Yet she makes no order for this to change nor does she more than mildly rebuke those who think that a woman on the stage is the 'beginning of the end'. She appears to be as trapped in the constraints of her gender as 'Thomas Kent'. Explore the issues of gender as it is portrayed within the film.
             "The way societies think about and treat women is often considered a means of measuring how civilised they are"– Dusinberre, 2003.
             William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest writer and poet of the English language. His literature works written over 400 years ago, have survived the challenge of time, so much so that Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and poems are still considered to this day an integral facet within the study of culture, society and language. Due to the depth and conceptuality of Shakespeare's plays, directors such as Baz Luhrman and John Madden have since captured Shakespeare's essence, bringing the views of the Elizabethan era to the 'big screen' of post-contemporary society. Within every play that is turned to film, new interpretations are conceptualised to which mirror the age and generation of the viewers. The 1998 film, Shakespeare in Love, cleverly altered the way in which audiences viewed Shakespeare by adjusting the temperament of the film with a modern lens. Moreover, to cater for a 'modern' audience at the time, the film tackled the issue of 'gender' by capturing a woman's desire to act on stage in the Elizabethan era and the frustrating journey she experienced due to the societal confines of her gender. .
             Therefore, within this paper I intend to explore the issues of gender as it is portrayed in the film whilst depicting the confines of the 'female character' and how it is 'stipulated' within specific works of Shakespeare.


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