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The Shakespeare Sisterhood: Miranda

Miranda, the Admirable, as her name denotes, is a purely ideal creation of the poet's mind -- Titania herself not more imbued with the essence of fairy-land.

So spiritual, so ethereal is her organization, that it baffles all merely practical attempts to analyze or classify it; to her most material beholder she is scarce more than an exquisite, magical illusion, which, if too boldly approached, a wave of some mystic wand will instantly dispel.

In body, mind, and spirit, Miranda is essentially virgin; her grace, her beauty, her self, are as guiltless of any meretricious suggestion as in the hour when she was born: "society" is a sealed book to her innocent eyes -- the world, a myth. Her quick susceptibility to a love as pure as it is passionate seems the one only quality she possesses in common with her sisters; she is the child of Nature and super-Nature -- belonging to humanity, but a humanity so free from base alloy that it is but a step removed from the pure spiritual.

The fact that she is a duke's daughter, and the affianced bride of a prince, does nothing toward humanizing Miranda: the duke is the legitimate magician-duke of fairy romance; the prince, the invariable Prince Charming, whose intrepid devotion is rewarded by the hand of the enchanted beauty.



How to cite this article:
Palmer, Henrietta L. The Stratford gallery, or, The Shakespeare sisterhood. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1859. Shakespeare Online. 20 Oct. 2009. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/characters/sisterhoodmiranda.html >.
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Miranda. From A Stratford Gallery.