Mary Cowden Clarke's "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" as an amplification of the Bard's plays

Abstract

The dissertation focuses on the collection of novellas "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" by Mary Cowden Clarke, presenting them as amplifications of the plays by Shakespeare. Specifically, the thesis aims to establish Cowden Clarke's tales as amplifications of the Shakespearean plays by delving into the new perspective her work offers on the play's female characters. The first chapter introduces Victorian society and its views on gender roles, focusing on its ideal of femininity. The chapter, then, concentrates on the development of children's literature during the Victorian period, exploring the books' contents and circulation. The second chapter summarises Shakespeare's role in the moral education of Victorian girls. It presents the first examples of Shakespearean retellings for children written by the Lambs and the Bowdlers, using these literary precedents to contextualise and introduce Cowden Clarke's life, work, and connection to the Bard, with a particular focus on her collection. The third chapter provides an overview of the common features of the novellas and then analyses "Desdemona; the Magnifico's Child," "Ophelia; the Rose of Elsinore," and "Juliet; the White Dove of Verona." The fourth chapter discusses the relationships between the heroines and their parents, and it also examines the heroines' doubles that Cowden Clarke creates in her prequels.