Powerful female characters have a significant role to play in the second half of Shakespeares career.  Select either Regan and Goneril form King Lear, Lady Macbeth from Macbeth, Desdemona from Othello, or Cleopatra from Antony and Cleopatra.  Discuss the way in which femininity is represented, and complicated, in the play.  How do these strong female characters exercise power in ways that are different from their male counterparts? What do the ways in which these female characters lose power make a statement about the status of women in Renaissance society?

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