ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the possibilities of female collaboration in the works of William Shakespeare. Like The Merchant of Venice, The Tragedy of King Lear commingles economic and familial bonds to create unique and vexed opportunities for female collaboration. But Lear's conspiracies do not allow comic resolution; they cripple social stability in a vision of "monstrous" rule. If the political worlds of Henry V treat the female closet as seditious, the public markets of The Merchant of Venice suggest the same possibilities among those women who await suitors in Belmont. Shakespeare presents the first conspiracy as Henry prepares his troops for the invasion of France. Indeed, Shakespeare's visions of female conspiracy, while valorizing women as powerful figures when working together, draw his audience's attention to the threat of women at the same time. These collaborations give women voice and agency with or without depicting them as engaged in acts of force.
