How does Shakespeare portray masculinity in the Elizabethan age?

Shakespeare wrote during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, under Queen Elizabeth and King James. His plays depict a broad range of masculine expressions throughout many eras. His young men tend to be emotional and impetuous. Orlando in As You Like It moons over Rosalind and fights with his brother. Romeo falls for Juliet before becoming embroiled in a conflict and murdering Tybalt. Hamlet is yet another moody youth, who is alternately contemplative and rash.

There are also a number of patriarchal figures in Shakespeare’s plays. Prospero governs over his teenage daughter in The Tempest. He is both domineering and tender, seeking to control others but ultimately choosing forgiveness. Leontes in Winter’s Tale becomes overcome with suspicion and a masculine sense of paranoia about his wife and lineage before eventually coming to his senses and realizing his foolishness. King Lear becomes senile and ornery as he grows old, railing against his daughters and the world. Like Leontes, he has moments of clarity, finally admitting that he is “old and foolish,” simply “a very foolish fond old man.”

Another quality that Shakespeare examines is the connection between masculinity and violence. Coriolanus is about a man who, though controlled by his mother, exemplifies manly action. He becomes furious when his nemesis belittles him with the word “boy” and chafes at speaking sweetly to the despised commoners, connecting peace with femininity:

… my throat of war be turn'd,
Which quired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice
That babies lulls asleep!

Both Macbeth and Othello sink into violence which they have learned from fighting bravely in war, a “manly” enterprise. Characters associate both Queen Margaret and Tamora in their respective plays with masculine and inhuman elements because of their brutality: “No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature!”

Obviously, masculinity in that era came in many shapes and sizes. Shakespeare portrayed men who were funny, pious, foolish, wicked--the list goes on. These are just a few examples of many studies on masculinity found in his plays.