This book offers a look at the lives of Elizabethan era women in the context of the great female characters in the works of William Shakespeare. Portia and Kate, Ophelia and Desdemona, Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth, the beautifully realized women in Shakespeare's plays continue to captivate us, relevant and revealing even today, centuries after their creation. They also offer us a window into the realities of daily life for women across the social spectrum...