Sunday, October 19, 2008

Misogyny Galore

Reading the Restoration Tempest, I've found that the co-editors of Shakespeare's piece not only deigned to add several characters/love interests, but also added a great deal of misogyny to the play's lines.

For instance:
"like most of her frail Sex,
She's false, but has not learned the art to hide it;
Nature has done her part, she loves variety:
Why did I think that any Woman could
Be innocent, because she's young? no, no,
Their Nurses teach them Change, when with two Nipples
They divide their liking."

This is Ferdinand on Miranda, Act 4, Scene 1, starting at about line 80.

It's also interesting to read this play and see what the co-editors' ideas of what a man who had never seen a woman, versus the woman(en) who had never seen a man, would be like. Hippolito's youth seems to make him naively overeager to claim women for himself, so much so that he makes a rival for Miranda in Ferdinand...

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