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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 10 page essay that focuses on the device of cross-dressing and the role that this plays in As You LIke It and Twelfth Night. The writer also addresses the use of androgyny. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
10 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KL9_khcrossdre.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
In so doing, Shakespeare challenges the gender boundaries of his era by incorporating the topic of cross-dressing into the context of each narrative. The following discussion of these plays focuses
on the similarities and differences evident in how Shakespeare handles the characterization of Rosalind, in As You Like It, and Viola, in Twelfth Night, demonstrating how this pertains to Shakespeares
handling of androgyny, with a particular focus on the Epilogue of As You Like It. Feminists have frequently analyzed both plays in terms of Rosalind and Viola violating the
patriarchal standards of their era. However, examination of the narratives indicates that Shakespeare was careful to present these heroines within a cultural context that his audience would find acceptable. For
example, Viola describes herself as a "poor monster (II.ii.25)," offering an evaluation of her current cross-dressing circumstance that expresses the cultural anxiety that Elizabethan associated with cross-dressing (Garber 36). Furthermore,
in the play unfolds, Shakespeare makes it clear that, if the desires of the characters, including the desires of Viola, are to find fulfillment, then Violas "masculine usurped attire must
be thrown off and woman linked to man" (Laqueur 114=115). Nevertheless, despite the fact that Shakespeare includes the cultural context of how Elizabethans viewed cross-dressing and gender roles, throughout both
plays, the audience is also presented with descriptions that conjure androgyny, which was a prevalent idea in the Elizabethan era. For example, it was generally believed during the Renaissance that
certain animals, such as the hare, were capable of changing their sex, that is, males were believed to bear young occasionally. Therefore, the hare was viewed as being androgynous (Laqueur
(18). When Malvolio first presents Viola/Cesario to Olivia, he describes him in terms of "unthreatening maleness" (Lindheim 681). Malvolio says that the youth is "Not yet old enough for a
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