SOURCE: "Gender and Genre In Shakespeare's Tragicomedies," in Reclamations of Shakespeare, edited by A. J. Hoenselaars, Rodopi, 1994, pp. 129-38.

In the following essay, Wilcox confronts the myths commonly associated with the genre of tragicomedy, and maintains that Shakespeare's tragicomedies are "as much about femininity as masculinity. "

In recent years, much has been spoken and written about Shakespeare's works in terms of the critical and cultural myths that have accrued around them.¹ Cultural materialist and feminist critics in particular have rightly drawn attention to the haze of previous interpretation and appropriation through which we always inevitably approach the plays. How might our reading of Shakespeare's tragicomedies be deepened by such a consciousness of the myths with which the critical reception of the plays has become riddled? By this generic term "tragicomedy" I mean the two problem comedies (All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure), and the late...