Twelfth Night (Vol. 62) | Lisa Jardine (essay date 1992)

Lisa Jardine (essay date 1992)

SOURCE: “Twins and Travesties: Gender, Dependency and Sexual Availability in Twelfth Night,” in Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage, edited by Susan Zimmerman, Routledge, 1992, pp. 27-38.

[In the following essay, Jardine examines the treatment of crossdressing in Twelfth Night, as well as the relationship between economic dependency and sexual availability in early modern England.]

Viola: He nam'd Sebastian. I my brother know
Yet living in my glass; even such and so
In favour was my brother, and he went
Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,
For him I imitate.

(3.4.389-93)2

[Ingling Pyander]
Walking the city, as my wonted use,
There was I subject to this foul abuse:
Troubled with many thoughts, pacing along,
It was my chance to shoulder in a throng;
Thrust to the channel I was, but crowding her,
I spied Pyander in a nymph's attire:
No nymph...

[The entire page is 5862 words long]

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