“Shakespeare is bent on finding men and women who, without losing the virtues and integrity of their own sex, have also the virtues of the other. If Shakespeare had no admiration for the womanly woman in the sense of the clinging vine, neither had he for any of the manly men as embodied in what our generation refers to as the “he-man” or the “red-blooded man.” He scorned the gentleman, but all his best men are gentle men.”
Harold Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare, quoted by one of the smarter people I know.
