Appearance vs. Reality | Nancy K. Hayles (essay date 1979)
Nancy K. Hayles (essay date 1979)
SOURCE: "Sexual Disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, Vol. 32, 1979, pp. 63-72.
[In the following essay, Hayles compares Shakespeare's use of sexual disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, concluding that his use of the device progressed from investigating the ramifications of role-playing to questioning the very nature of sex and gender.]
In dealing with the female page disguise in Renaissance drama, one is invariably struck by the complexity of the double sex reversal implied by the presence of the boy actor. Lamb's remarks are typical: 'What an odd double confusion it must have made, to see a boy play a woman playing a man: one cannot disentangle the perplexity without some violence to the imagination.'1 Perhaps because most of us share Lamb's perplexity, not much work...
[The entire page is 6862 words long]
Navigate
