The Female Tragic Hero in English Renaissance Drama

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The Female Tragic Hero in English Renaissance Drama, edited by Naomi Conn Liebler. London and New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. X + 242. Cloth $65.00.

"Female" and "tragic hero": together in the same space? The seeming oxymoron buried beneath the terms comprising Naomi Liebler's title signals a somewhat challenging project. For from the outset, a critical tradition that marks tragedy as a form controlled and managed by a masculine imaginary creates something of an obstacle, inviting readers to find gaps where something like "female heroics" can emerge. Growing from a 1998 Shakespeare Association of America seminar entitled "Wonder Women: Female Tragic Heroes in the Plays of …