High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Women in Shakespeare is a topic within the general discussion of Shakespeare`s dramatic and poetic works. Women appear as supporting and central characters in Shakespeare`s plays, and these characters, as well as the so-called "Dark Lady" of the sonnets, have elicited a substantial amount of criticism, which received added impetus during the second-wave feminism of the 1960s. A considerable number of book-length studies and academic articles investigate the topic.