Ask the Expert: Professor McLuskie
Have you got an unanswered Shakespeare question? No matter who you ask, you just can't find the answer? Well, now with our new regular series of expert interviews, you can study Shakespeare in more depth than ever before.
Professor Kate McLuskie, director of the world renowned Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, has bravely agreed to take your questions. The topic is “Shakespeare and Women”, so if you haven’t decided whether Shakespeare was a feminist or a misogynist, now’s your time to ask a leading expert.
If you’ve got a burning question for Professor McLuskie, then please post a comment. Selected questions will be answered in early December.
Please note: Questions are now closed. The final interview will be published shortly.
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That Will wrote so many of his sonnets to/for a young man does not necessarily mean that he was a homo-sexual, (tho’I do believe he may have ‘dabbled’?)
His sonnet that begins “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame” tells me that he enjoyed the fruits of heterosexual relationships to great and enjoyable excess, especially with the musician’s daughter, (the dark lady).
I am approaching my 75th year and began to study Shakespeare by default? In my later working life I ended up on a production line building gas fires (1987- 1989). I was so damn bored I needed a challenge and decided to study him and even while the line was permanently moving and I had several duties to fulfill I propped open a copy of Henry iv part 1 and tho’ it took a while I eventually succumbed and to this day I write sonnets by the score, I love the man.
Professor McLuskie:
As a practicing attorney, I am uncomfortable with narrow focuses of interpretation, and tend to favor Greenblatt’s historiography. I have not seen eiher Callaghan’s recent feminist collection nor G. Greer’s study on Mrs. S. It is my opinion from the spectrum of female personnas in the plays that Shakespeare knew a great deal about the female character. Yet, as a dramatist and actor, his vocation placed him with boys playing women. My question (request) is for a reference to a scholarly piece on S.’s understanding of the female personna. Best wishes to you. Thank you.
It is a pleasure to read your work. Welcome to the About.com Family!
I am curious about Shakespeare’s take on Joan of Arc in Henry VI – is she meant to be a sympathetic character? How might audience members during Shakespeare’s time reacted to her portrayal?
Dear Prof. McLuskie
I dont know the order of the plays but I know ideas/tecniques developed – I presume this is the same with his potrayal of women?
My question:
“Did Shakespeare’s portrayal of women change throughout his career? And does this reflect the changing social status of women at the time?”
One of my enjoyable side interests over the years has been the collecting of theatrical fiction and Shakespeare has prompted a good deal of it. In terms of your topic (Shakespeare and Women), I’d love to hear your reactions to the kinds of treatments found in Grace Tiffany’s MY FATHER HAD A DAUGHTER and Robert Nye’s MRS SHAKESPEARE. Are there other fiction works using Shakespeare or Shakespearean material that you admire or find less than admirable?
To what extent is Measure for Measure’s Isabella a strong female character? Is her sexualization liberating or damning?
Questions are now closed