SOURCE: “Feminism and Shakespeare's Cressida: ‘If I Be False …’,” Women's Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1990, pp. 65-82.

In the essay below, Harris analyzes the ways in which Cressida has been reviewed by modern criticism. Harris underscores the way feminist critics have countered each of these views of Cressida, and adds that feminist critics have found new ways of studying this character.

In the late 1960s, Jeanne T. Newlin posited the modernity of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida in terms of its adaptability to twentieth-century issues. One aspect of particular interest in Newlin's study is the seemingly disparate ways in which Cressida has been portrayed on the stage. In William Poel's 1912 production, Cressida was obviously older and more experienced than Troilus, and she became the shaping force of the tragi-comedy genre to which Poel assigned the play: Cressida's “frivolity led to the comedy of the early scenes, but the earnestness of her...