1s There a Woman in this Text? Female Domination in Shakespeare's Henry VI

The purpose of this paper is to present a feminist, or at least gender-oriented, reading of Shakespeare's Henry W(1590-1591). These early history plays, depicting the Wars of the Roses, have always been interpreted as pseudo-historical pageant-like creations in which war clamour dominates the whole action. Consequently, they have been regarded as the poor debut of a young and inexperienced playwright. Using the insights offered by femi-nist literary criticism, 1 want to come to an artistic re-evaluation of these plays. As a ((resist-ing reader)), 1 draw attention to hose aspects that have always been marginalized: pain and sorrow and the protagonists ' personal response to these feelings. Key words: Shakespeare-history plays, Feminist literary criticism. The purpose of this paper is to present a feminist, or at least gender-oriented, reading of Shakespeare's Henry VI (1 590-1 591). As the three plays constitut-ing the trilogy belong to the oldest and least-known section of the Shakespeare canon, it may seem presumptuous on my part to use feminist literary criti-cism-a fairly modern and certainly controversial approach- for a reappraisa