OK, so last night, I couldn’t sleep. Well, I could, but then I couldn’t…stomach still flippy-floppy, and mind still whirring from thinking of the essay.
After putting the laptop away after last night’s late-night update, I just sat and thought.
And I abandoned the gender/casting aspect.
I think that might be a better project for this Project. A way to revisit all the plays, and a way to keep the blog fresh.
So–at least for the Master’s thesis–motherhood it is.
And a preliminary pass at my thinking goes something like this:
If one takes the Roman plays chronologically (historically, not composition-ally), Shakespeare tracks the relative health and ultimate demise of the Roman Empire through his depiction of motherhood. I see this being explored through a combination of feminist/gender studies and postcolonial literary theory. I still need to see if there’s an actual gap in the scholarship there, but I think this could work…
And I already have my adviser’s sign-off.
So maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight.