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Shakespeare and the Age of Elizabeth - Fall 1990
Workshop #2: The Debate About Women
by Nancy Taylor
I. The texts: Jane Anger, Her Protection for Women (1523); Joseph Swetnam, The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, froward, and unconstant women (1615); Esther Sowernam, Esther hath hanged Haman (1617). (3 hours)
Form groups of four, either the people you worked with in last week's workshop, or four people new to each other. Discuss the following questions and explore answers to them as a group. Keep notes of the discussion and your answers in your own notebook, to be accessible for later discussion. Appoint one person to keep track of the time.
A.--(10 minutes) What sorts of people is each article written for? men? women? both? What clues in the articles help you to reach your conclusions? List them.
B.--(10 minutes) Are they written as defenses of one gender or as attacks on the other? How do you know? What difference would it make?
C.--(15 minutes) How does each author treat/describe Eve's participation in the creation story? What do those differences suggest?
D.--(15 minutes) Swetnam enumerates woman's failings, faults, deceits. What are they, according to him? According to him, are those failings common to all women? Can you organize his list into three or four categories?
E.--(10 minutes) What are Anger's criticisms of men? Do they correspond to Swetnam's attacks on women? Do they also fall into three or four types?
F.--(5 minutes) Henderson and McManus say, "...the attacks on women in this anthology employ well-established and traditional modes of argument:example and anecdote, appeals to authority, analogy, invective, and jest." (p. 32) If we take them at their word that these modes are "well-established and traditional," why would authors of the attacks continue them? Do the women's responses also use these modes?
1.--(10 minutes) Identify examples from the three articles of at least one of the modes Henderson and McManus describe.
2.--(10 minutes) Henderson and McManus find "zeal and conviction" and "moral outrage" in the responses by women. (p. 22) Cite examples in the Anger and Sowernam articles. Do you also find such tone in Swetnam's article? If so, where? If not, how do you account for the difference?
II. The historical context (20 minutes)
A.--(10 minutes) Henderson and McManus suggest that the misogynist nature of the pamphlets and the defenses of women in response to them are, in part, a consequence of the changing expectations of marriage. What do you see in the three articles that supports this claim? What argues against it?
B.--(10 minutes) What arguments do you find in Swetnam's article for the inferiority of women? What other misogynist arguments do Anger and Sowernam suggest?
III. The plays (Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing) (20 minutes)
A.--(10 minutes) How do you see the Debate About Women played out in Taming of the Shrew? Is Kate the sort of woman Swetnam warns us about? Is Bianca? Are Beatrice and Hero?
B.--(10 minutes) Henderson and McManus suggest that the Debate about Women is in part about the contrary notions of hierarchy and companionship in marriage. Do you find evidence of this in the articles? Do you find evidence of this contradiction in the two plays?
Meet together in CAB 110. Do part IV on your own, and part V in the large group.
IV.(20 minutes) You identified possible explanations for misogynist attacks on women in Part II.B above. Take a few minutes now to explore other explanations for the fear and hatred of women--ones that might not apply to 17th Century writing, for example.
V. (20 minutes) We will discuss your responses to the workshop, particularly I.A., II.A. , and III.