Janet Adelman

Janet Ann Adelman (January 28, 1941 – April 6, 2010) was an American Shakespeare scholar, literary critic, and professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

Adelman's most prominent works include book-length critiques of William Shakespeare’s plays presenting new psychoanalytic and feminist readings of Antony and Cleopatra and The Merchant of Venice in "The Common Liar: An Essay on 'Antony & Cleopatra'" (1973) and Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in 'The Merchant of Venice (2008), respectively.

Adelman authored another book, Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origins in Shakespeare's Plays, Hamlet to the Tempest, (1992) that discusses maternal characters over many of Shakespeare's works.

Early life and education

Adelman was born in Mount Kisco, New York, on January 28, 1941. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and graduated summa cum laude from Smith College in 1962. She then attended St Hugh's College, Oxford in England the following year supported by a Fulbright Fellowship. She received a Master of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1966 and a Ph.D. in English from Yale three years later in 1969.

Career

Adelman joined the University of California, Berkeley Department of English as an acting assistant professor in 1968 (also one of the first women to join the department faculty), earned tenure in 1972, and became a full professor in 1981. She eventually served as the department's chair from 1999 to 2002 and retired in 2007. Other areas of interest were also listed as: "English Renaissance Literature 1500-1660. Gender & Sexuality Studies. Drama."

Adelman's book addresses three sections of "Antony and Cleopatra": the uncertainty caused by the unreliability of historical information found in the text, the differences of background and tradition – “a tradition which emanates chiefly from Renaissance understanding of Dido and Aeneas, and of Mars and Venus myths” – and the use of poetry and language in the play. Her book ultimately connects the history of Antony and Cleopatra with the events depicted in Shakespeare's play, and investigates how Shakespeare portrays the story, in terms of his use of language and character development. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays, 'Hamlet' to 'The Tempest''' With her dominant interests in psychoanalysis, gender, and race, Adelman writes Suffocating Mothers, exploring the depiction of females in Shakespeare's works and the dominating effects of the maternal identity over the masculine characters. In short, the focus is on “the nightmare of femaleness that can weaken and contaminate masculinity." In Shakespeare's plays, it is often seen that the maternal body has been seen to contaminate both the father and the son. Adelman's book focuses on a handful of Shakespeare's works: Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, and Antony and Cleopatra.

Adelman focuses on either the role of the maternal figure of the play or the lack of one, and the effects on the male characters. Hamlet's view is affected with the role of his mother as the adulterous female, and in Othello, the male imagination is corrupted with the idea of female betrayal. Even in "King Lear", with the absence of a mother in the play, females take on the dominant role over King Lear, the presence threatening “to overwhelm male authority and selfhood." Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in 'The Merchant of Venice In a religious reading of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice,'' Adelman focuses on Shakespeare's unique representation of the historical conflict between Christianity and Judaism during the time. Shylock is the principal Jewish character along with his family including Jessica, his daughter, who elopes with Lorenzo and converts to Christianity. Adelman points out the great significance in both Jessica's and Shylock's eventual conversions to Christianity. Adelman analyzes the significance of Jessica's leave and deceit of her father in the context of Jewish cultural history. She approaches the work as she becomes increasingly informed about her religious traditions by attending the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, California.

Personal life Her husband of 33 years, Robert Osserman, said Adelman loved the theater, nature, bird watching and taking walks in Tilden Regional Park.