Androgyny, Mimesis, and the Marriage of the Boy Heroine on the English Renaissance Stage

Abstract

Changing conceptions of gender and of theatrical mimesis can be seen in the representations of transvestite heroines on the English Renaissance stage. This paper compares their roles in five comedies: Lyly's Gallathea; Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night; and Jonson's Epicoene. In each play the plot centers on marriage, the bride-to-be wears transvestite disguise, and the disguise plays a crucial role in the plot. In all five plays, the sexual ambiguity of the boy heroine is associated with the problematic relations between the male actor and the female character he portrays, the dramatic representation and the reality it imitates, the play and the audience that watches it. Increasingly rigid gender definitions and a devaluation of the feminine are associated with a rejection of fantasy, the development of neoclassical mimetic theory, and a deepening anxiety about the process of theatrical representation.

Editorial introduction: androgynous bodies and cultures in Asia

“…Individuals who embody these characteristics have always been around, emerging prominently in art and religion, including in Asia. For example, the prohibition of women on stage at various points in history meant that boys and young men played women's parts, starring as "female impersonators" in the English Renaissance theater (Rackin 1987), the dan (female roles) in traditional Peking opera established during the Qing dynasty (Mackerras 1994), and the onnagata (female roles) in kabuki theater in seventeenth-century Japan (Isaka 2016). While outnumbered by boys and men, girls and young women have also cross-dressed, notably as "female players" in Chinese theater during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) (Li 2003), "male impersonators" in nineteenth-century American variety and vaudeville (Rodger 2018), and otokoyaku (male roles) in the Takarazuka Revue founded in early twentieth-century Japan (Robertson 1998).…”