“A creature that did bear the shape of man”: hybridity and gender in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra and Measure for Measure

Scylla, a mermaid and a Gorgon, three hybrids inherited from classical antiquity, are respectively associated with Shylock, Angelo and Antony in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra and Measure for Measure. The association of these creatures with the three male characters is quite innovative since they were mostly depicted as female and often conjured up to draw a nightmarish portrait of femininity and of its dangers in the early modern period. This paper therefore aims to show how the metaphorical hybridity of the Shakespearean characters not only blurs the species divide but also the gender divide in order to lay bare the precariousness of the early modern male/female categories.Scylla, une sirène et une gorgone, trois hybrides hérités de l’Antiquité, sont respectivement associées à Shylock, Angelo et Antoine dans The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra et Measure for Measure de Shakespeare. L’association de ces créatures aux trois personnages masculins est novatrice dès lors qu’elles étaient majoritairement dépeintes comme de sexe féminin et souvent mobilisées pour donner une représentation cauchemardesque de la féminité et de ses dangers dans l’Angleterre de la première modernité. Cet article entend ainsi montrer comment l’hybridité métaphorique des personnages shakespeariens déstabilise non seulement les distinctions entre les espèces, mais aussi les distinctions entre les genres afin d’interroger les catégories masculin/féminin telles qu’elles étaient définies dans la société anglaise des XVIe et XVIIe siècles

« O monstrous ! O strange ! » : Le monstrueux dans le théâtre de Shakespeare

Travail d’Étude et de Recherche présenté par Manon Turban en vue de l’obtention du Master 2, sous la direction de Madame Sophie Lemercier-Goddard, Département Langues, Littératures et Civilisations Étrangères, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. Remerciements Je souhaite remercier très chaleureusement Sophie Lemercier-Goddard pour avoir accepté de diriger ce travail de recherche et pour avoir pris le temps de me guider avant et pendant sa réalisation. Je lui suis tout particulièrement reconnais..

« Tradition picturale et transmission : le monstre dans le portrait royal élisabéthain »

International audienc

“I, poor monster” (Twelfth Night, II. 2. 33): Monsters as Subjects in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest

International audienceThis paper aims to study how the unusual characterisation of Caliban and Bottom as feeling and thinking subjects in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest provokes the emergence of compassion, an emotion which monsters seldom inspired in the early modern period and which invites the audience to catch a glimpse of the mutability of human identity in these two monstrous characters

« Cartographic Monsters and Empiricism »

International audienc

« ‘O monstrous ! O strange !’ : Le monstrueux dans le théâtre de Shakespeare »

International audienc

“I, poor monster” (Twelfth Night, II. 2. 33): Monsters as Subjects in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest

International audienceThis paper aims to study how the unusual characterisation of Caliban and Bottom as feeling and thinking subjects in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest provokes the emergence of compassion, an emotion which monsters seldom inspired in the early modern period and which invites the audience to catch a glimpse of the mutability of human identity in these two monstrous characters

Cartographic Monsters and the Rise of Empiricism

International audienceThis paper studies the impact of empiricism on seventeenth-century cartographic monsters through the analysis of three maps: Jodocus Hondius’s 1598 map of the land described by Walter Ralegh in The discouerie of the large, rich, and bevvtiful empire of Guiana (1596), Thomas Edge’s map of Spitsbergen (1625), and John Speed’s map of China, published in 1631 in the cartographer’s A prospect of the most famous parts of the vvorld. These three maps indeed highlight the fate of cartographic monsters as empiricism progressively became the prevailing mode of investigation of the natural world. Whereas monstrous creatures can still appear on the eve of the seventeenth century thanks to the first-hand testimonies provided to attest to their existence, they appear to be condemned to two destinies afterwards. They seem either to disappear and give way to representations of the actual fauna of the region depicted, or to be conjured up to be used only as ornaments