Conclusion: Girlhood After Shakespeare’s Heroines

Abstract

Mary Cowden Clarke turned to fiction to recover the girlhood of Shakespeare’s heroines, but in this book I have turned to Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare’s plays contain characters that are distinctly presented as girls, and they present a detailed conception of girlhood. Silvia and Bianca are peevish and perverse, and the Queen in Richard II is wise beyond her years. Julia, Ophelia, and Perdita draw upon their theatrical and musical abilities as performers in order to express themselves, and Juliet uses her imagination to project herself into alternate realities. When lost and in trouble, Marina relies upon her learning and her wits, while Miranda coolly appraises the challenges that await her in adulthood. Ariel and Pericles do not actually start out as girls, but they become them, rhetorically. Together, the Shakespearean girls that I have discussed here present an image of girls as they are, not as they should be: disobedient, aggressive, prejudiced, and superior, as well as brave, expressive, accomplished, strong, and wild.