"Shakespeare and the Embodied Heroine is a dynamic cross-period investigation of Shakespeare's notable female characters from the late plays. Using the Restoration and eighteenth century adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, this book explores female characters from a theatrical point-of-view that includes a close-reading and imagining of the text with a 'directorial eye', performance history, and practical staging experiments. Leigh reveals evidence to question certain conventional interpretations of Shakespeare's heroines and also documents a paradoxical reduction of sexuality and independent agency for Shakespeare's female roles as they started to be played by actresses rather than boy players. Highlighting the manner in which Shakespeare's female characters have the power to question, subvert, and reposition gender boundaries, and illuminating the complexity and multiplicity of the ways the women in Shakespeare's plays express their agency and desire, this book provides fascinating new readings on the staging and reception of Shakespeare's heroines"--