Literary Heroines: Shakespeare or Not? Quiz

Answer:

For this quiz, I have chosen heroines of Shakespearean plays who are known only by their first names - hence the glaring absence of the iconic Lady Macbeth (whose real given name was Gruoch). Some of these characters are quite well known, while others may not be immediately familiar to everyone.

Some of Shakespeare's most memorable heroines are found in his tragedies. In "King Lear", Cordelia is the youngest of the titular character's daughters, and the only one who remains loyal to him. In "Othello", Desdemona is the hero's faithful wife, who defies her father in order to marry him, but is killed by him in a fit of jealousy. In the historical tragedy "Antony and Cleopatra", the famed last Queen of Egypt, a consummate seductress, brings about the downfall of her husband as well as her own. While in "Hamlet" Ophelia is the hero's love interest, the character of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, is even more important in the economy of the play, as much of Hamlet's anger and disgust (which lead him to mistreat the innocent Ophelia) stem from her hasty remarriage to Claudius, his father's brother and murderer.

Shakespeare's comedies also feature some intriguing female characters. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream", the quarrel between Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, and her husband Oberon leads to a series of amusing events that involve other characters in the play. In "Much Ado About Nothing", the witty, sharp-tongued Beatrice spars verbally with Benedick until the pair are forced to admit to their feelings for each other. Viola, the protagonist of "Twelfth Night", disguises herself as a young man - unwittingly creating a love triangle with her employer, Duke Orsino, and the noblewoman Olivia, who falls in love with "him". In "The Tempest", the romance between Miranda, the daughter of the duke-turned-magician Prospero, and Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples, drives the plot to a happy ending, in which past wrongs are forgiven.

Of the two Shakespearean heroines named Portia, one is the wealthy and clever heiress who is central to the plot of "The Merchant of Venice", while the other is Brutus' wife in "Julius Caesar", who appears only twice in the play. In "The Merchant of Venice" it is stated that Portia was named after the Roman character, who was the daughter of Cato the Younger. Isabella, a novice nun, is the main female character in "Measure for Measure", another of Shakespeare's "problem plays". She becomes an object of desire for the hypocritical judge Angelo while trying to save her brother Claudio's life. In "Troilus and Cressida" (yet another problem play, set during the Trojan War), Cressida is the daughter of traitorous Trojan priest Calchas, who proves faithless to her lover, a Trojan prince, when she lets herself be seduced by Greek warrior Diomedes.

The play "Troilus and Cressida" creates a connection between the correct answers and the wrong ones, as all the characters listed as wrong answers are found in classical Greek literature. Penelope and Nausicaa both appear in the "Odyssey", while Hecuba, Queen of Troy, appears in the "Iliad" and Euripides' tragedies "Hecuba" and "The Trojan Women". The sorceress Medea is the titular character of another of Euripides' tragedies, while Phaedra, Theseus' wife, is the main female character in Euripides' "Hippolytus". Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, appears in Aeschylus' "Oresteia", as does her daughter, Electra; both characters also appear in various plays by Euripides. Electra is also the title character of one of Sophocles' surviving tragedies - as is Antigone, Oedipus' daughter.