Female Shakespearean characters

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; 70/69 BC10 or 12 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh. A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. Her first language was Koine Greek, and she is the only Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language, among several others. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period in the Mediterranean,

15th-century English royal consort (1430-1482)

In Greek mythology, Hippolyta, or Hippolyte (; Hippolytē), was a daughter of Ares and Otrera, queen of the Amazons, and a sister of Antiope and Melanippe. She wore her father Ares' zoster, the Greek word found in the Iliad and elsewhere meaning "war belt". Some English translations prefer "girdle". Hippolyta figures prominently in the myths of both Heracles and Theseus. The myths about her are so varied it is thought that they may be about different women. The name Hippolyta translates as "she who unleashes the horses", deriving from two Greek roots meaning "horse" and "let loose".

Queen consort of England

Ophelia ( ) is a character in William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet. Due to Hamlet's actions, Ophelia ultimately becomes mad and drowns.

Juliet Capulet ( ) is the female protagonist in William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. A 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist Romeo, a member of the House of Montague, with which the Capulets have a blood feud. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself.

fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream

character from Shakespeare's play

English noblewoman, mistress and convicted sorceress

Desdemona () is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish Venetian military prodigy. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the Republic of Venice, Desdemona accompanies him. There, her husband is manipulated by his ensign Iago into believing she is an adulteress, and, in the last act, she is murdered by her estranged spouse.

character in Shakespeare's play The Tempest

fairy

character in Shakespeare's Hamlet

thumb|Cressida depicted by Thomas Kirk Cressida (), also rendered Criseida, Cresseid or Criseyde, is a character who appears in many medieval and Renaissance-era retellings of the Trojan War, most notably Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. While her character in the later western tradition was developed from Chryseis, a minor figure in Homer's Iliad, they share few similarities.

English witch; cunning woman (before 1415 – 1441)

servant to Cleopatra

character in the play King Lear

Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1611). She is a vicious and powerful witch and the mother of Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero, the hero of the play, is stranded.

characters in Macbeth

Goneril is a character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear (1605). She is the eldest of King Lear's three daughters. Along with her sister Regan, Goneril is considered a villain, obsessed with power and overthrowing her elderly father as ruler of the kingdom of Britain.

fictional character from Othello

heroine of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

topic within Shakespeare studies