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Coppélia Kahn’s Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women reads Shakespearean texts from a gendered perspective, focusing on the construction of masculine identity in Roman ideology. In her book, Kahn, Professor of English, Emerita, at Brown University, delivers the first full-length feminist critical study of William Shakespeare's Roman plays: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus (with a postscript on Cymbeline). Shakespeare’s long narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece is also examined from a feminist approach.

Roman Shakespeare belongs to the series Feminist Readings of Shakespeare, in which each book in the series engages with current topics and debates within feminist criticism as it examines a particular genre of Shakespeare’s works (tragedies, histories, etc.). In her preface to Roman Shakespeare, the series editor Ann Thompson aligns the goals of the series with that of the seminal 1975 feminist work Shakespeare and the Nature of Women, citing author Juliet Dusinberre’s intentions of investigating Shakespearean texts to interrogate “women’s place in culture, history, religion, society, the family."

Roman Shakespeare is broken down into six chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of Kahn’s claims of the construction of Roman male identity, especially as it appeared on the English stage, and the subsequent chapters each focus on a different Shakespearean Roman text to explicate the gendered discourses within.

Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds, and Women

Chapter 1: Roman Virtue on English Stages

Kahn begins her feminist critique of Shakespearean texts by acknowledging the traditional concept of “Romanness as male” and explicitly stating the central claim of her book: “Shakespeare’s Roman works articulate a critique of the ideology of gender on which the Renaissance understanding of Rome was based.” To reinforce this central argument, Kahn asserts her key premise that gender is an ideology, and therefore constructed; furthermore, she claims that the view of the “patriarchy” and its received association with male dominance is strongly linked with Rome so that “Romanness” is repeatedly recognized as an ideology of masculinity in which a heroic figure demonstrates virtuous and noble ideals, offering a clear exemplar of manliness or male traits. Three of Shakespeare’s male Roman heroes are renowned historical exemplars of this Roman masculine ideal: Julius Caesar, Antony, and Coriolanus; one of them, Titus, is modeled on this exemplar.

The chapter also focuses on the English stage and how it “refashion[ed] Romanness,” creating a new Roman ideology by anglicizing Roman history and legend for public entertainment. For the English people, this dramatized re-creation helped to construct the gendered ideology of Rome, particularly in its relation to “manly virtue” or virtus as the core component of “Romanness.” Kahn explains that the word virtus is derived from the Latin vir, meaning “man” and is, therefore, gender-specific, “making ‘Roman’ virtue synonymous with masculinity.”

The first chapter also acts as a preface to the book, providing a brief examination of Kahn’s subtitle: Warriors, Wound, and Women.

• “Warriors” refers to the “central motif of the Greco-Roman heroic tradition” in which the heroes of Shakespeare’s Roman texts participate, especially regarding homosocial relationships that emphasize the male bond which manifests itself in the Renaissance concept of emulation: “a mixture of admiration, imitation, and domination.” Warriors, according to Kahn, practice emulation with rivals in two ways: “by imitating as the mirror-image of an ideal self, and by competing against with the aim of excelling and dominating.”

Tarquin and Lucretia by Titian

• “Wounds” implies a vulnerability more commonly associated with women, yet the wounds which the heroes receive are rendered as a fetish of masculinity, a desirable and noble acquisition in the course of battle and central to the construction of the male identity and of the Roman hero.

• “Women,” the final item in the subtitle, is also significant to the construction of male heroes as Romans; Kahn argues that, although subordinated within the Roman patriarchal system, Roman women provide an alibi for their husbands or lovers when the men encounter anything contrary to the received ideology of masculinity, yet they also refuse the position of being mere opposites in regard to gender and insist on mutuality.

Chapter 2: The Sexual Politics of Subjectivity in Lucrece

In her chapter devoted to the long narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece, Kahn argues that Tarquin’s loyalty to Rome is destroyed by his obedience to virtus and to emulation, which drives him to rivalry with Lucrece’s husband in order to wound Collatinus’s honor and then conquering Lucrece’s chastity by raping her.

Kahn also argues that Lucrece is pictured as “a typically weak and suppliant woman, the subject if not the victim of power held by men,” but then she gains her voice after the rape and vocalizes her desire to kill herself to preserve her honor, propelling her into a position as Roman hero, especially since her suicide led directly to the establishment of the Roman republic.

Samuel Woodforde illustration of Tamora watching Lavinia dragged away to be raped in Titus Andronicus

Chapter 3: The Daughter’s Seduction in Titus Andronicus, or, Writing Is the Best Revenge

In Titus Andronicus, Kahn attributes the tragic events that transpire within the play to Titus’s strict, unyielding adherence to the Roman ideology of masculinity. When Tamora pleads for her eldest son’s life, Titus explains without remorse that the Romans demand the son’s life as sacrifice for all the warriors who died in battle, beginning a chain of events that eventually leads to an almost complete annihilation of Titus’s family line.

Kahn also points to the rape of Titus’s daughter Lavinia as being directly related to Titus’s neglect of patriarchal duty by refusing the emperorship. His unwillingness to yield to the people’s wishes culminates in a breakdown in the political system and in the exchange for Lavinia’s hand in marriage, “facilitating” Tamora’s “incorporation into Rome” to rise to power as the new emperor’s wife.

Chapter 4: Mettle and Melting Spirits in Julius Caesar

Emulation plays a prominent role in Kahn’s exploration of Julius Caesar, focusing specifically on the male bond between Brutus and Cassius. Kahn also explores the association of the public realm with maleness and their “insuppressive mettle” and the private with “the melting spirits of women,” in the words of Brutus.

Kahn also points specifically to Brutus’s wife Portia as a combination of the masculine and feminine, pushing for a bond with her husband by asking for his secret, thereby constructing herself as a Roman male, but then proving incapable of holding onto that secret. Portia’s attempts to reason with Brutus can be heard here. Kahn also argues that Portia demonstrates manly virtue and courage by voluntarily giving herself a very Roman wound in the thigh.

Late 19th-century painting depicting Cleopatra holding Antony as he dies

Chapter 5: Antony’s Wound

Emulation once again is significant in Antony and Cleopatra, where Kahn points to the “homosocial rivalry” between Antony and Octavius and the mirror relationship they enjoy with each other that allows them to mutually admire and identify with each other while still plotting domination and victory.

She also discusses Antony’s suicide as a mark of honor and courage and the logical extreme of Roman emulation: “cheating the enemy of the triumph he seeks.” Antony’s reliance on a male servant to assist him in his suicide once again emphasizes the relationship formed between two men.

Kahn concludes the chapter by focusing on Cleopatra, citing her position as alibi for Antony in distancing himself from Octavius “in order to excel him.”

1800 painting by Richard Westall of Volumnia pleading with Coriolanus not to destroy Rome

Chapter 6: Mother of Battles: Volumnia and Her Son in Coriolanus

In Coriolanus, Kahn argues that Volumnia functions as both father and mother to Coriolanus, and she recognizes Volumnia’s pivotal role in the play, claiming the feminine ideal of chastity as “the female counterpart of virtus [and] what makes women socially valuable in Roman patriarchy.” The relationship of Coriolanus and Aufidius is also once again interrogated in regard to emulation as they seek to battle and conquer one another and then eventually partner to attempt the victory over Rome.

Selected Critical Reviews of Roman Shakespeare

Naomi Conn Liebler begins her review by discussing the “pervasive misogyny” which permeates any discussion of Shakespeare’s Roman plays. Liebler agrees with much of Kahn’s arguments, but she claims an oversight on Kahn’s part in which the third elements in the subtitle is neglected: women. Liebler maintains that women are underrepresented at crucial points in Kahn’s book, a missed opportunity in a book dedicated to feminist readings.

Linda Woodbridge states in her review that Kahn’s arguments will influence many fine future classroom debates, but she questions whether Kahn adequately fulfilled her central claim that the works critique the Roman ideology of gender.

Lynn Enterline’s review is distinct because she examines Kahn’s subtitle, claiming that Kahn’s ordering of “wounds” between “warriors” and “women” is reminiscent of an “unhappy bridge” separating the two genders, suggesting the unresolved tensions between males and females and that “the wound cuts both ways.”