Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Father-Daughter Relationships in Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Ar

Father-Daughter Relationships in Sidneys The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia, Marlowes The Jew of Malta, and Shakespeares The Merchant of VeniceJustification for the subjugation of females to males during the one-sixteenth century came from a variety of sources. Ranging from the view that God gave Adam authority over Eve as penalty for the fall, to a belief in the favourable position of a husbands physical strength over that of his wife, attempts at rationalization of the restricted freedom of women came from every direction.1 Puritan reformers also believed that Eve was Gods gift, given up to Adam to consummate and make up his happinesse.1 From this perspective, we can easily make the mental adjustment necessary to embrace the view of women as property that could be given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favours, set as tri howevere, traded, bought, and sold.2 With this viewpoint in mind, it is interesting to move into a consideration of the father-daughter relations hips presented in Sidneys The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia, Marlowes The Jew of Malta, and Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice to analyse how this viewpoint limited the freedoms of daughters.To begin our exploration of father-daughter relationships in the context of patriarchal control, we must first regard how males viewed and represented daughters within the texts. In The gray-haired Arcadia, Pyrocles as Cleophila not only praises Philoclea in fragmented body parts (as opposed to a whole person), but also compares these parts to military instruments of war. Her loose hair be the shot, the breasts the pikes be / Scouts each motion is, the hands the horsemen and her cannons be her eyes.3 Although this comparison situates Philoclea in the degra... ...53-7.10 Oxford English vocabulary Online11 Singh, 153.12 The Merchant of Venice, III.ii.83-96.13 D. Lucking, Standing for Sacrifice The Casket and Trial Scenes in The Merchant of Venice, University of Toronto Quarterly (Spring 198 9)355-75, quoted by J.G. Singh, in A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, ed. Dympna Callaghan (Malden and Oxford Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), 150.14 The Jew of Malta, II.iii.52-3.15 II.iii.289.16 The Old Arcadia, 101.17 The Old Arcadia, 102.18 The Old Arcadia, 5.19 The Jew of Malta, II.iii.228-232.20 The Jew of Malta, II.iii.304-6.21 The Merchant of Venice, I.ii.22-5. 22 II.v.56-7.23 The Jew of Malta, III.iii.39-42.24 The Jew of Malta, II.iv.1-4.25 The Merchant of Venice, III.i.31-33.26 The Old Arcadia, 360.27 Dusinberre, 124.

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