This paper, through an examination of the Shakespearean comedies As You Like It (AYLI), The Merchant of Venice (MOV), and Twelfth Night (TN), will detail the transgressive nature of female cross-dressing. Aspects studied will include the motive in cross-dressing of major female protagonists, the degree of homoeroticism explored, as well as the empowerment of said protagonists within the framework of the patriarchy in existence throughout the Elizabethan Era. Topics addressed will include the degree of the threat posed by female cross-dressing, the nature of cross-dressing, observed motives, and how the act of cross-dressing fits into the play’s climax and resolution. Through careful consideration of critical works and each respective play’s plot and content, what will be established is the non-threatening employment of the subversive female figure as a dramatic device to instigate and later abate social tension. Determining the degree of subversion will include a comparison of theatrical dynamics among the three comedies, taking in to consideration the end product of female characters’ cross-dressing along with the degree of subversion, deceit, and the calamity caused by it. Examination of the Shakespearean works, along with critical sources, will aid in the conclusion that while female protagonists pose threats to the Elizabethan audience, the restoration to sexual “convention” at the close of each play proves that the cross-dressing poses an almost non-existent transgression against what was then defined as socially-acceptable values.
Introduction
The era of Elizabethan theatre heralded unparalleled advances in the works of England’s playwrights. Among the more noticeable changes were the emergence of powerful female characters and most notably, the exploitation of the figure of the classic unruly female. A dramatic device attributed to the introduction of tension, the unruly female throughout literary history has been demonized as a subversive component threatening to destabilize patriarchal society. Beowulf’s Grendel, for example, is not nearly as threatening as the image of his mother, whose unchecked slaughter and insatiable appetite for human flesh are interpreted frequently as sexual connotations. Among Shakespeare’s more recognized plays featuring the unruly woman is The Taming of the Shrew, whose primary protagonist (or antagonist, depending on which section of the play is in question) Katherine is the challenge her suitor must conquer, or tame. Socially repugnant, Katherine is the opposite of the accepted figure of the demure, polite female. A cantankerous woman, her separation from society is equally as daunting as her active refusal to adopt the traits of her more accepted sister Bianca. Cross-dressing adds sexual confusion and an obfuscation of gender normalcy to the list of threats posed by the unruly female; while socially acceptable, the duplicity of female characters belies their threat to society. In short, female characters that pass for men pose more of a threat to society due to the concealment of their deviance.
Shakespearean comedies, more frequently than tragedies or histories, made special use of the figure of the unruly woman for the fact that the context in which cross-dressing transpired was jovial, if not simply trivial. As seen in the cases of female protagonists across the three comedies, the women are not cross-dressing to forge permanent, new identities; cross-dressing is a means of empowering the women to attain their ends. In this sense, there is a significant social transgression, as the Elizabethan patriarchy relegated women as mentally fragile creatures in need of constant male domination and control. Common traits of the Elizabethan female include those of children: sexual innocence, general naïveté, and helplessness were the preferred norm of the Shakespearean woman. However, this is not to preclude the sexual or socially unruly women of Shakespearean literature; instead, it is to identify what a typical Shakespearean audience in the Elizabethan Era expected to see as a resolution to a play. An “unruly woman” was fully expected to be “tamed” or brought under control. The progression of the uncontrollable woman, initially defiant and in direct opposition of the patriarchy in which she existed, progresses through a plot in three distinct phases: 1) the female is introduced as a stereotypical “wild woman” and threat, deemed to be so per her sexual chastity, refusal to marry, or escape from male-dominated society; 2) the female is challenged by or attracts the attention of a male counterpart, whose mission is to sexually conquer or marry her; and 3) the female is subdued through marriage or conflict resolution in which she succumbs to the will of the man. The convention of these three stages is very much akin to the modern-day “happy ending,” which is why the significance of the transgressions is called into question. If each play follows the path outlined in the three aforementioned phrases, is there any threat at all? Or is Shakespeare simply using the image of a wild woman to conjure conflict to keep his audience in suspense?
Chapter One: As You Like It
Rosalind is perhaps the most multi-dimensional character in Shakespeare’s cross-dressing plays. Like Shakespeare’s other works, As You Like It parallels Orlando and Rosalind circumstantially long before their love affair begins. Prior to their interaction, Rosalind and Orlando have much in common: both are exiles, Orlando by his brother and Rosalind by her kinsman. Both lose their fathers prior to the onset of the play, with Orlando excluded despite the primogeniture rights bestowed upon him as his father’s oldest son. Cast away by his brother Oliver, Orlando lives a life of social exclusion much in the same way Rosalind leaves the realm of her society when she endeavours the assumption of her alter ego Ganymede. The difference between the two, however, is key; Orlando is excluded by outside forces, while Rosalind opts to break social boundaries. Shakespeare’s very choice of Ganymede—the Hellenistic companion and boy lover of Zeus—belies Rosalind’s exploits as a cross-dressing heroine.
The moniker she assumes at the onset of her dichotomous existence attributes to Rosalind an added depth of character; Rosalind is a woman who dresses like a man, named after the homosexual consort of the most powerful of the Greek gods, later pretending through her character of Ganymede to be her actual ego, Rosalind, in a series of exchanges with Orlando (the object of mutual affection) whose goal is to ultimately learn to woo Rosalind. The sexually multi-faceted heroine assumes the identity of Ganymede in order to gain a sense of freedom; as Ganymede, Rosalind is free to pursue her interest in Orlando, a practice not becoming of the typical Elizabethan Era woman. The alter ego of Ganymede affords her greater mobility socially; she is able to vocalize her emotions, albeit indirectly, to Orlando. Maurice Charney notes in his Shakespeare On Love & Lust that Rosalind is “at her best when she is Ganymede pretending to Rosalind,’ at which point she can “fully exploit her coy artifice” (Charney 2000, p. 40).
Depending on the spectrum of her intent, Rosalind poses several subversions to accepted Elizabethan gender roles. As a woman, Rosalind is restricted to a pacified, immobile role. She is subdued by her place in society, unable to transcend her station and without the means necessary to pursue her desire. It should be noted, however, that Rosalind is sexually deviant even as a woman. Her love affair with Orlando aside, Rosalind defies several Elizabethan social strictures in her evocation of homoerotic affections from her cousin Celia. Ruminating on Orlando’s virtues and her adulation, Rosalind’s awe promotes a sense of jealousy from Celia, who finds her cousin’s words “too precious to be cast away upon curs”; Celia laments Rosalind’s affections and her words, asking her cousin to “throw some at me,” wishing her cousin to “lame [her] with reasons” justifying love (Act I, Scene iii, lines 4-6). Where Elizabethan women and their compatriots had to wait for male interaction to find adulation and romantic exchange, Rosalind is immediately privy to Celia’s homoerotic advance. This exchange is significant because it removes the exclusive realm of female sexual admission from men, therein empowering Rosalind who, at the mentioned point in the play is not a part of society at large, still an exile of sorts. To a degree, Rosalind’s sexuality attracts women, therein raising Rosalind’s status from that of woman to attract to a woman who attracts other women. On an Elizabethan stage where lesbianism was practically non-existent, Rosalind was made into a de facto man. Tempered by no male, Rosalind’s exchange with Celia is a sexual transgression blurring the gender lines in the pursuit of women. Celia’s attraction to Rosalind surfaces at several junctures, appearing again in Celia’s attempts to dissuade Rosalind from a courtship with the estranged Orlando. The wayward cousin attempts to defame Orlando, slandering him as the moral equivalent of the Biblical Judas, insinuating to Rosalind that progressing further in the romance would lead only to betrayal. Celia makes physical comparisons with Judas in order to portray Orlando’s vile character as surpassing Judas in repugnance with the proclamation that his “very hair is of the dissembling colour” of Jesus’ demonized disciple (Act III, Scene iv, line 6). Rosalind’s sexual transgression takes on another level, remaining one of unbridled power in its attraction of Celia. As one of Shakespeare’s “unruly” women, Rosalind’s sexuality is such a strong force that it spurs other women to take on male characteristics in order to win her affection. Celia’s attempts to dissuade Rosalind from love, almost seducing her cousin by making note that Orlando’s hair of “dissembling colour” cannot compare to the “chestnut [hair]” Celia describes as being “ever the only colour” of desire (Act III, scene iv, line 9).
Discouraging her cousin from a loving relationship with Orlando, Celia happens to contest Orlando’s character while Rosalind is Ganymede, a situation that would erstwhile make their union palpable, going as far as claiming Orlando is only true “when he is in love,” suggesting that Rosalind’s feelings are unrequited (Act III, Scene iii, line 24). Celia retains her power over Rosalind, even assuming the position of an empowered woman controlling another female transgressive. As Ganymede, Rosalind is teased by Celia upon discovery of Orlando’s cacophonous verses in praise of Rosalind’s beauty in the forest. Empowered with the exclusive knowledge of the identity of the author of the forest verses, Celia teases Ganymede, resulting in stern chiding by the cross-dressed heroine’s exclamation that “the devil [takes] mocking” (Act III, scnee ii, lines 202-203). Celia refrains from divulging Orlando’s name as the author of the verses, therein keeping Rosalind/Ganymede in a position of inferiority. Through this mocking, Celia evokes in Rosalind a barrage of childish questions, revealing for the first time the depth of Rosalind’s feelings for Orlando. Celia reduces Rosalind from an unruly woman of composure and control to a prototypical, accepted Shakespearean woman reliant on requited love to give her life meaning. The curious aspect of this particular exchange and reverse empowerment is that Celia teased Rosalind when her cousin was dressed as Ganymede; Celia thus gained the upper hand as a woman in control of another woman dressed as a man, who in turn claimed a power over other men.
Examining the later odd circumstance of Rosalind/Ganymede’s tutoring of Orlando, Marjorie Garber writes in her “The Education of Orlando” about the adept, witty nature of Rosalind. Maurice Charney concurs in his Shakespeare On Love and Lust, stating that “Orlando is a dolt in love, and Rosalind leads the love game and wit combat by her intelligence and fertile imagination”; the joking stance “masks real feelings of the protagonists, who are trying valorously to conceal their passion” (Charney 2000, p. 40).
Switching the gender role of dominance and rapier intellect, Rosalind is composed as Ganymede, able to manipulate Orlando’s affections as she/he pretends to be Rosalind in exchanges with the exiled oldest son. Orlando is manipulated constantly, made into the weaker of the two parties both emotionally and intellectually. Throughout this unconventional exchange, Orlando is the only one to reveal his emotions candidly; Rosalind, through her alias Ganymede, remains aloof and protected, never divulging fully her intentions, identity, or emotions despite being able to do so (and indirectly capitulating on the circumstances to reveal herself, albeit to an unwitting Orlando). Among the primary issues in the private exchanges is the reasoning Rosalind had behind her failure to reveal herself to Orlando. For all means and purposes, Rosalind could have divulged her true identity. It is here that Rosalind’s sexually-maligned ways transgress gender boundaries. After all, Shakespearean women such as Rosalind “must retain their disguises because of exigencies of the plot”; however, “what is Rosalind’s rationale” in maintaining the façade of Ganymede, when she could have just as easily declared herself to be “Orlando’s ‘Heavenly Rosalind’” (Garber 1992, p .168). At the point of Rosalind/Ganymede’s “education” of Orlando, he had already admitted to being smitten with Rosalind with the full intent of marriage. Rosalind would not have presented such a transgression if her duplicity was out of necessity rather than free volition. Garber continues, positing “those critics interested in the question” of Rosalind’s motive “seem in general to agree that disguise is a free action for Rosalind and that her double role allows her to be at once caustic and caring, tender and tough” (Garber 1992, p. 169). Orlando’s fumbling mannerisms and clumsy approach to romance renders him incapable of further pursuit of a relationship, thus precipitating Rosalind’s metamorphosis into Ganymede. It is almost as if Orlando becomes the more effeminate of the two, having to practice his conversations with Rosalind through her alter ego. Orlando is nervous, unsure, and not at all in control of his own composure. Rosalind is thus perhaps not the guilty party in sexual transgression; it is a debatable assertion that she merely assumes Ganymede to fill the void of the male-female necessity in Shakespearean plays left by the uncharacteristic actions of Orlando. It is with this empowerment that Rosalind approaches Orlando a gendered superior, at one point chastising the object of her affection for arriving late to their faux lesson; throughout Orlando’s “studies” of sorts, Rosalind dares to even state (albeit protected by costume) that she is “[Orlando’s] Rosalind” (Act IV, Scene I, line 59).
To a large extent, Rosalind’s gender misalignment cannot be considered a sexual transgression. Despite the obfuscation of power in her exchanges with Orlando and Celia, it cannot be denied that the setting of these exchanges is unique. All of Rosalind’s exploits with Orlando take place in the forest, a setting Orlando adopts as an exile from society. Rosalind approaches Orlando in her own exile, assuming the identity of Ganymede in the forest as a socially excluded exile. Maria Prendergast notes in her critical Renaissance Fantasies: The Gendering of Aesthetics in Early Modern Fiction that it is “in the space of Arden that the transformation” of gender takes place; Arden is a “pastoral space that, like other pastorals, is associated with the enclosures of fiction” (Prendergast 1999, p. 117). Shakespeare seems to form a world in Arden where mimesis has no place and plays thus have no need to mimic the strictures of social norms. In this sense, can sexual transgression really be asserted? If such cross-dressing affected no one in society, taking place away from the prying eyes and opinion of the public, did Rosalind overstep the gender boundaries and roles established in Elizabethan England? It is in the forest that Celia and Rosalind exploit the vulnerability of Orlando, carrying on a mock marriage between him and “Ganymede” to which Orlando is completely unaware. It is only during this marriage that Celia berates her wayward cousin, claiming she “simply misused [their] sex” through Orlando’s manipulation (Act IV, scene I, lines 185-188). It is curious that once a familiar social institution such as marriage was brought to the picture that Celia deigned to change her stance on Rosalind’s exchanges with Orlando, admitting a degree of complicity in the sexual transgressions that transpired. Shakespeare here introduces a sense of sexual normalcy, and from the staged marriage on, Rosalind begins to falter in her duplicity until she is united with Orlando as herself.
Rosalind’s cross-dressing was a machination that caused little malice; Orlando, after all, was a social pariah smitten with Rosalind long before the manipulation employed by Ganymede. Rosalind achieved little other means outside the securing of Orlando’s affection; therefore, the sexual transgression was not of a significant degree. Manipulation was very much in place, but it was arguably in favour of a grander scheme in which Orlando “tamed” Rosalind in the three distinct phases outlined above: The first phase would be Rosalind’s desire for Orlando and assumption of the identity of Ganymede, the second phase would be her indirect courtship of Orlando, and the third would be Rosalind’s abandonment of Ganymede and subsequent marriage to Orlando.
Chapter Two: Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night’s Viola, like Rosalind, is an outcast of sorts. Stranded in the fictional kingdom of Illyria after a terrible shipwreck, the nobility-born Viola disguises herself as Cesario when faced with the prospect that her brother, Sebastian, is dead. As a woman, Viola discovers that she can find no work, a situation Shakespeare fashions to coerce Viola’s creation of Cesario. “Shipwrecked in Illyria, Viola initially wishes to gain employment with the Countess Olivia in her own shape as a woman, though without disclosing her name and station”; Olivia’s mourning makes a suit to her impossible, empowering Viola to “conceal who she is and seek service instead with Duke Orsino in the guise of the youth Cesario” (Garber 1992, p. 168). Not unlike Rosalind, Viola is “trapped in her disguise when she falls in love with the man she serves and is sent by him to plead his love to Olivia” (Ibid). Like Rosalind, Viola also assumes the character of Cesario in order to protect her self-determination, the object of her desire being erstwhile out of her reach. Unlike Rosalind, Viola’s abuse of her alter ego and manipulation of the situation between Olivia and Orsino involves the direct abuse of Orsino’s trust in order to take the place of Olivia as Orsino’s object of affection. Aiding and abetting Viola’s project, however unintentionally, is Olivia, who in spurning Orsino’s advances indirectly endorses Viola’s pursuit of Orsino’s affections. Unlike Rosalind’s situation, Viola’s likeness as a man closely resembles her twin brother Sebastian, accentuating the existence of society’s dichotomous gender system. Sebastian’s absence from the opening of TN summons the possibility that Viola unwittingly replaces her brother, bringing to the forefront the familiar theme of primogeniture in AYLI. Where the two plays differ in this respect is Viola’s direct transgression of the familial unit, whose gender roles are arguably more concretely established than those in the sexual male/female order. As a proxy for Sebastian, Viola goes on about her life as Cesario in order to survive, downplaying insinuations of malice in her cross-dressing venture. Using her forged identity to locate her brother later in the play, however, suggests that Viola’s replacement of Sebastian earlier represents a violation of Elizabethan patriarchy. When Viola eventually finds work in the household of Orsino, she discovers a victim to another transgression existing separately from her own cross-dressing. The figure of Olivia almost defines the course of the play; Olivia is the tempest to conquer in TN, a jilted lover who refuses to succumb to the throes of amorous endeavours. Unconquerable by Orsino, Olivia is a prototypical unruly woman of the likes of classical figures such as Grendel’s mother. With no man dictating her life, Olivia poses more of a transgression to the gender system of Elizabethan society than Viola, mirroring AYLI’s Celia in her homoerotic tendencies toward Viola’s alter ego Cesario. Upon wooing Olivia at Orsino’s request, Viola inadvertently gains Olivia’s affections as Cesario. Olivia is herself taken aback, especially given her adversity to courtship and marriage. She wistfully wonders in an aside how she could “so quickly catch the plague”; Olivia realizes she feels “[Cesario’s] perfections with an invisible and subtle stealth to creep in at [her] eyes” (Act I, Scene V, lines 290-296). Viola is therein driven into Orsino’s arms, her meagre manipulation compounded by Olivia’s transgression, not that of Viola as Cesario. Orsino and Olivia are therefore manipulative, however indirectly, of Viola/Cesario in their own right.
The homoerotic implications of TN are more far-reaching than in AYLI, particularly in the case of Viola’s accidental seduction of Olivia. Unlike Celia, Olivia is patently unruly, establishing her “wildness” in the history of her categorical rejection of fellow nobility, most notably Orsino. By Elizabethan standards, a sexually deviant love triangle is hence completed: Viola loves Orsino, who does not love Viola but loves Olivia, who in turn rejects Orsino and loves Viola as Cesario. Laurie Osborne focuses on the homoerotic relationship between Olivia and Viola/Cesario in her The Trick of Singularity: Twelfth Night and the Performance Editions, noting such “passionate friendships” such as that between Viola and Olivia “only drew criticism when the women defied patriarchal controls by cross-dressing or by adopting and maintaining masculine behaviours” (Osborne 1996, p. 97). Celia and Rosalind/Ganymede were not nearly the threat to Elizabethan values to the extent of Viola/Cesario and Olivia due to the alleged cognizance of Celia that Ganymede was actually Rosalind. While Viola, like Rosalind, adopted a male alter ego presumably to rejoin a society that shunned them. Though the measures they adopted were unorthodox, there was no outright malice as the actions taken toward each other did not exclude the male contingent of society. Viola/Cesario and Olivia did not act in collusion together, and therefore they were not necessarily a pernicious threat to the Elizabethan patriarchy. Osborne digresses, claiming “Viola and Olivia, of course, both” maintain masculine behaviours and cross-dressing habits; “Viola dresses as a boy, and Olivia boldly woos Cesario, thus usurping the male role of courtship” (Osborne 1996, p. 97). While there is no doubt that Olivia transgresses sexual boundaries, she never cross-dresses in the pursuit of Viola/Cesario. It is Viola who cross-dresses to be Cesario, and it should be noted that outside her employment in the estate of Orsino, Viola does not serve any other interests in her stint as a man. Her position as subservient to Orsino is overstepped by her aspirations upon hearing Orsino’s professions of adulation while dressed as Cesario; Viola insists she will “do her best to woo [his] lady”, but in an aside concedes to herself that “whoe’er [she woos],” she would “be his wife” (Act I, scene iv, lines 40-43). However, Olivia’s attraction bears no common bond with Viola’s employment of Orsino. Despite all this, Osborne maintains that Viola’s usurpation of “the male role of courtship,” consistent in her argument even though “Olivia’s passion is complicated by the fact that she is not pursuing an idealized friendship with another woman, but a marriage with a boy—her love anticipates consummation in ways critics suggest were unthinkable for female friends of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries” (Osborne 1996, p. 97).
While none of Shakespeare’s female protagonists were intentionally subversive or aware of their own homoerotic powers, there were established unruly women such as Olivia who played into the dangers of rebelling against the patriarchal system. The degree of their malevolence, however, varied significantly as the outcome of Shakespeare’s cross-dressing comedies ended in similar fashions. As Osborne notes, “the masculine behaviour of both Olivia and Viola compromises the acceptable love imagined in the poem and produces anxieties entered around those aspects of their characters”; “the excessive concern expressed by the critics about both Viola’s cross-dressing and Olivia’s amorous pursuit of her masks a larger anxiety about the potential homoeroticism of their relationship” (Osborne 1996, p. 98). Viola’s assumption of Cesario carries with it significant implications of her alter ego as serving the function of sexual ardour; without Cesario, Viola is just another woman. As Cesario, however, Viola is a sexual being, empowered by the adulation and desire of others. This contention is most aptly evidenced in Act I, when Viola/Cesario is instructed by Orsino to pass on the Duke’s messages of love. The dialogue that transpires next shows a degree of duality in the sexual power of both Viola/Cesario as well as Orsino. Both figures show a degree of homoeroticism as well as heterosexual lust. Viola/Cesario initially questions Orsino’s faith in her/his abilities to woo Olivia; the act of doubt is one of sexual insubordination. As a woman, Viola disrupts the male pursuit of Orsino to Olivia, therein shifting the power in pursuit from Orsino to Viola. Moreover, given Olivia’s propensity of denying Orsino’s advances, the tempest cycle is made complete, with Olivia complete dissociating herself from the Duke and Viola assuming control of his romantic ruminations. Viola/Cesario’s “doubts” are merely a façade masking her/his unwillingness to allow Orsino to pursue Olivia, craving the Duke’s attention for her/himself. Second, there is a mutual bond of male homoeroticism. Though the figure of Cesario downplays the attraction of Viola to Orsino, the Duke’s assurance of Cesario returns the affections to a degree. Returning to Viola/Cesario’s “doubt,” Orsino makes a marked attempt to unwillingly coerce Viola to return to his sexual servitude. Though she is already taken with Orsino, Viola is still made into a pawn in the love triangle established by the Orsino and Olivia. Orsino even bears an attraction to Cesario, evidenced by his citation off Viola/Cesario’s features in the assurance that the latter would be able to woo Olivia on his behalf. Orsino assures who he believes to be Cesario that Olivia can surely be persuaded through Cesario’s charms and appearances. Orsino dotes on Cesario’s lips, which he likens to those surpassing Diana’s as “more smooth and rubious”; Orsino continues in his adulation of Cesario’s looks as being “semblative a woman’s” (Act I, Scene iv, lines 30-35). While “an actress playing Viola mitigates Orsino’s attraction to Cesario,” there is a definite “aggravation in the homoeroticism of” both Orsino and Olivia’s love for the youth (Osborne 1996, p. 96). There exists in the love triangle an equality that is unheard of in a patriarchy, one in which suddenly all three – Viola/Cesario, Olivia, and Orsino – are equally transgressive. If Viola is perceived as a woman, she is less of a transgression than she is if perceived as a man. In either situation, however, it should be noted that Olivia, Orsino, or both pose a significant threat to the Elizabethan patriarchy. Viola is desired by both parties regardless of the gender in which she is perceived, rendering her an unwitting “wild woman.” Osborne asserts:
“An actress playing Viola mitigates Orsino’s attraction to Cesario, but at the same time aggravates the homoeroticism in Olivia’s love for the youth. Viola/Cesario’s femininity is apparent enough to justify Orsino’s sudden proposal to his page, then surely it is also apparent in Olivia’s relationship with him/her. The appearance of one woman desiring another is further underscored by the impropriety of Viola’s masculine dress and its association with the dangers of certain close relationships between women” (Osborne 1996, p. 96).
Chapter Three: The Merchant of Venice
As Garber notes, in most “Shakespearean comedies, women dressed as men have compelling reasons for remaining in disguise” (Garber 1992, p.167). Where Rosalind and Viola had to use their disguises to conform to a patriarchal society and its workings, MOV’s Portia uses hers on behalf of a weaker man’s gain. The daughter of a nobleman who died before she was able to wed, Portia’s first foray into the realm of sexual transgression comes not in the physical act of cross-dressing, but in her selection of a suitor. While “Cross-dressing had a variety of function in these plays, some deriving from the material conditions of performance, others” found functionality in the “conflicted status of gender roles in the culture at large”; “the uses of cross-dressing varied over time and across class” (Rackin 2003, p. 114). Unlike her counterparts in AYLI and TN, Portia’s choice of Bassanio is one of questionable virtue. She cares desperately for a man of nobility to a lesser degree than her own, adopting the alias of Balthasar—coincidentally the name of her servant—to convince the moneylender Shylock to release Antonio, Bassanio’s colleague and friend. Her marriage to Bassanio did not necessarily warrant his happiness; rather than choose a Moroccan prince or Aragon, Portia opted instead for a man whose class was a marked descent from her father’s. Why would she concern herself in these affairs?
A significant possibility is that Portia was socially subversive before assuming the identity of Balthasar, choosing a lesser man so that she might retain some semblance of authority after marriage. Another possibility is that Bassanio married up, taking advantage of Portia and thus allowing for the establishment of a veneer of convenience: Bassanio would marry up, ridding himself of social weights and debt, while Portia would retain authority having married one of lesser social status. Shakespeare’s unique use of Portia as subversive plays off of several other themes in gender classification, most notably that of women as a prize to be women, something to be guarded as a mark of society. The attempted courtship of the dark-complexioned prince of Morocco plays off the concept of “the other,” posing another threat to the integrity of Venetian society by introducing the familiarity of the Muslim “hordes” and their threat to Christendom. Indeed, Shylock’s denigration as a Jew plays equally into this category, with Portia and her colleague Nerissa undermining the attempts of one of the “other” to harm a Christian male. In this sense, Portia’s subversion is actually a measure of assistance to the feeble incompetence of Bassanio and Graziano, who are otherwise unable to help their friend escape the clutches of Shylock the moneylender. Portia essentially becomes a man to defend the realm of the Christian male when others could not; in the context of the familiar versus the “other,” Portia’s sexual transgression actually makes her more of a hero to an Elizabethan audience.
The sexual exchange between the roles of men and women is naturally placed in check with the malfeasance of Portia as Balthasar. Almost as if to introduce a point of contention in the play, Shakespeare establishes the pomp of men early in the play in a discussion between the characters Graziano and Salerio, the latter of whom theorizes that love is at its best when the male lover pursues the female object of his affection; once the lover consummates the relationship having “conquered” the lady, the romance is lost and interest in the relationship dies (Act II, Scene vii, lines 1-11). Salerio’s theory reflects Shakespeare’s style in MOV with the establishment of tension set in the introduction of a strong female protagonist; thankfully for the noted playwright, the resolution of the intertwined confusion and chaos comes at the very end of the play, neutralizing the relevance of Salerio’s theory to the work. Portia introduces a great many of these small tensions and incredulities, materializing her threat to the sovereignty of the Elizabethan patriarchy by cross-dressing relatively late in the plot. Unlike Viola and Rosalind, who establish their alter egos almost as soon as they are introduced to the plot, Portia’s transgressions are of small scale throughout most of the drama until it comes time to resolve the debt owed to Shylock. At first, Portia is quite submissive, a quiet female subjugate to the patriarchal society in which she exists. She accedes to her father’s wishes even after his death, leaving her future in the hands of a trivial, petulant game wherein suitors vie for her chastity and estate by having the choice between three boxes, one of which would give Portia’s life and wealth as if she were some sort of prize to be won.
The deceased Venetian lord’s daughter reminisces how without marriage, she would be the “lord of [her father’s] fair mansion, master of [her] servants,” not to mention lord of her own free will, all of which she sacrifices in her choice of Bassanio (Act III, scene iii, lines 166-174). Playing on the theme of a man of lesser status, perhaps Portia has been in control all along, preferring to gamble her possessions and chastity in the hands of a man unaccustomed to wealth and nobility in comparison to the other two princes. It may very well be that Portia chose Bassanio to retain control, hoping that her earthly possessions would overwhelm him, therein establishing her social and sexual dominance early on.
Portia begs the man to delay his choice, which, according to perspective applied, could equate either as a measure to ensure Bassanio’s successful choice of chests and the cementing of her choice of suitors, or the prolonging of the surrendering of her chastity and estate. Portia implores of Bassanio in Act III:
“I pray you, tarry. Pause a day or two Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong I lose your company. Therefore forbear awhile. There’s something that tells me, but it is not love, I would not lose you; and you know yourself, Hate counsles not in such a quality. But lest you should not understand me well—and yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought—I would detain you here some month or two Before you venture for me. I could teach you how to choose right, but then I am forsworn” (Act III, scene iii, lines 166-174).
She continues in her plea to Bassanio:
“Beshrew your eyes, They have o’erlooked me and divided me! One half of me is yours, the other half yours—mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, and so all yours. O, these naughty times puts bars between the owners and their rights! And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so, let fortune go to hell for it, not I. I speak too long, but ‘tis to pass the time, to eke it and to draw it out in length, to stay you from election” (Act III, scene ii, lines 12-23).
Portia’s control exemplified in her pleas also suggests Portia is in control of her own sexuality, even dangling her chastity in front of Bassanio as incentive for him to act on her will. If Bassanio chooses incorrectly, he agrees to lead a life of celibacy. If he is Portia’s choice, his choice would lend added weight in importance if Portia is the stereotypical “insatiable” woman made popular throughout literary history. The above added duplicity and manipulation of the unassuming Bassanio is all perpetrated by Portia as a woman, and she remains as such until the play’s final act. Portia’s independence and status as an “unruly” woman threatening patriarchy, unlike that of Rosalind, Viola, and even TN’s Olivia is relegated from the onset of the play as temporal, even fleeting. Portia is trapped as a woman in a patriarchy by a decision made by her dead father; she is coerced into accepting the life in front of her. Rather than capitulate wholly to her father’s wishes, however, Portia makes the most of her life and asserts control where she can.
When viewed in the context lent above, Portia’s cross-dressing is both the most threatening and yet among the more innocuous of her sexual transgressions. MOV’s homoerotic scenes between Antonio and Bassanio need to be put into the context of Portia’s vying for control. Scholars note that prior to evaluating the degree of sexual deviance, “an assumption that homoerotic activity was considered deviant in the early modern period and therefore necessarily hidden or disguised hinders the ability to recognize the extent to which homoerotic practices were a recognizable part of normal social relations” (Crawford 2003, p. 140). That being said, women were still viewed in marriage as largely asexual beings for the entertainment and pursuit of men: hence the threat of a sexually-charged female. If women were not permitted a degree of homoeroticism, then male homoeroticism would be viewed as an act of relative insignificance. Portia’s establishment as an unruly woman when disguised as Balthasar introduces the possibility that she is jealous of her new husband’s affection for the doomed Antonio. Though Bassanio agrees that he loves his wife, he cares for Antonio’s well-being more. He exclaims to Antonio that though he is “married to a wife which is as dear to [him] as life itself,” his wife and all the “world are not to [him] esteemed above” Antonio’s life (Act IV, Scene i, lines 164-166). Bassanio is willing to “lose all, sacrifice them all to the devil” in order to “deliver [Antonio]” out of harm’s way (Ibid). Spiteful at best, Portia responds to the gusting Bassanio that his “wife would give [him] little thanks” if by chance she “were to hear [him] make the offer” (Act IV, Scene i, lines 397-380).
Helping in Antonio’s plight, Portia can be viewed either as assisting a dear friend of her husband or as taking charge and establishing her dominance and power over the fate of her new spouse. In the case of the former, it should be noted that unlike Rosalind and Viola, “Portia is not trapped in her role as the wise young judge Balthasar, but it is essential that she should be dressed as a man in order to free Antonio, confound Shylock, and ultimately teach her husband a lesson about the nature of generosity and love” (Garber 1992, p. 168). A more cynical view would endorse the latter of the previously mentioned arguments, especially given the significance of Bassanio’s proclamation of love for Antonio. In Act III, Shakespeare establishes Bassanio and Antonio as being so inseparable that it coerces Portia into take action, forcing her hand as if she was saving Bassanio himself. Ironically, Antonio’s ordeal finds his life hanging in the balance of a game of wits—this time between Portia/Balthasar and Shylock. Portia remains the deciding factor in Antonio’s life and Bassanio’s happiness, empowered, albeit non-sexually, to control the degree of her husband’s homoerotic indulgences as well as the life of a man. However, it should be noted that as the saviour of her husband’s companion, Portia is not a sexual transgressive; her cross-dressing alter ego is what saves Antonio from the clutches of the demonized Jewish moneylender Shylock, and in doing so coerces his conversion to Christianity and the salvation of Antonio’s life. Where Portia firmly establishes her threat to patriarchy is in her taunting of Bassanio. Shortly before they are to be wed, Portia entrusted Bassanio with a ring representing her love. Though a trinket of no substantial value, she makes her husband-to-be promise that he will never part with it, and as Balthasar, demands the very same ring as payment for saving Antonio’s life. Portia could have denied payment as the young male lawyer, but instead opts to torture her husband, instilling in him a sense of guilt for having gone back on his word. This could be a lesson taught by Portia to Bassanio of the importance of never misleading his wife, but could just as easily have been her assertion of power. After Bassanio reveals to Portia that he gave the ring to Balthasar to save his friend Antonio, Portia threatens him with her chastity, suggesting that she would give her purity away to another who would heed her requests of devotion. Portia is using her sexuality much in the same fashion as Celia and Rosalind in Arden abused their sex in the manipulation of Orlando. She threatens to make Bassanio a cuckold, consolidating her power and transgression of gender roles using nothing more than her chastity.
Conclusion
Cross-dressing can consistently follow the concept of the unruly or wild woman as a social transgression as easily as it can serve to relegate women as functional parts of the Elizabethan patriarchy. Though each case features women posing as men to achieve ends not possible in their stated gender, each Shakespearean protagonist differs contextually and in the severity of Elizabethan sexual deviance. Some critics of the Shakespearean-feminist persuasion assert the transgressive aspect of the plays, optimistic in their views that Shakespeare’s women pushed their social boundaries as independent women. Others question Shakespeare’s intent, as all of the leading ladies in his three cross-dressing comedies – Rosalind, Viola, and Portia – assume male identities to further the course of a formulaic plot that resolves the suspense created by their mischievous ways. Shakespeare’s women may “indicate male projections of what women must be, what Madelon Gohlke terms a ‘matriarchal substratum or subtext within the patriarchal text’ that is ‘not feminist,’ but rather provides a ‘rationale for the structure of male dominance” (Bono 1992, p. 151).
Michael Shapiro’s Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines & Female Pages addresses each play in context. In the case of MOV, Shapiro notes how “Portia is the only one of Shakespeare’s heroines to adopt and relinquish male disguise not under pressure of events from outside, but by her own choice of time and circumstance” (Shapiro 1994, p. 100). Though Portia dangles her sexuality in front of and tantalizes her soon-to-be husband, their relationship is already on its way to fruition. Moreover, her use of an alter ego actually served for the good of Bassanio’s happiness, perhaps Shakespeare’s way of exemplifying the sacrifice of a “good wife.” Throughout the course of the novel, Portia does not break any gender boundaries, adheres to her dead father’s wishes in the choice of suitor, and even aids in the debt of her husband’s friend.
Portia’s “power” as a threat to the patriarchal institution was not one of manipulation. From “the moment Portia broaches the idea of a male disguise, she reveals an energy, vitality, and playfulness that will enable her to control all relationships in the play” (Shapiro 1994, p. 100). Her ability to control others around her does not necessarily usurp the sexual power of her male counterparts, nor does she emanate the kind of sexual deviance and manipulation of Rosalind or even Viola. Portia’s cross-dressing is therefore not transgressive to the point of Beowulf’s adversary in Grendel’s mother Shapiro downplays Portia’s selfless act in the salvation of Antonio, stating that “Shakespeare makes Portia flex her power more explicitly when she hears of Antonio’s plight, for as several critics have pointed out, she recognizes Antonio as her rival for Bassanio” (Shapiro 1994, p. 102). If this was true and Portia was at all jealous, why incorporate a male alter ego of relative power and manipulation to execute a selfless act? The absence of emotion connotes malicious intent and a degree of the cold-blooded, but where was the self-serving end?
In her “On Not Being Deceived: Rhetoric and the Body in Twelfth Night”
Lorna Hudson describes TN as a “play which, for all the curiously metaphoric, disembodied the nature of language in which it articulates the desires of its protagonists”; TN has “become the touchstone of the ‘body’ criticism within Shakespeare studies” (Hudson 1996, p. 140). Viola/Cesario’s cross-dressing, though evoking a sense of the sexually-deviant in Olivia’s attraction to Viola/Cesario, does not pose a threat so long as Viola pursues Orsino, mending relationships along the way. Sebastian ends up with Olivia, therein ending the violation of homoerotic attraction to Viola/Cesario, and Viola ends her cross-dressing, which was maintained solely to attain a relationship with Orsino.
Each comedy ends in the same manner, with female protagonists returning to their normal gendered state. While speculation can be made that “what the comedies were about was the ease with which systems of sexual difference could be dismantled and the notion of gendered identity is called into question,” the peaceful resolution of the plays lends a controlled convention that begs the question as to whether the cross-dressing was devious at all to begin with. Though power structures were challenged and gender roles were disrupted, none of the exceptions to the Elizabethan sexual rules were broken permanently. The notion that what the comedies were about was really the “indeterminacy of gender was given a new and historically authenticating twist by investigations into the history of biological definitions of gender which seemed to prove that, in the minds of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, gender itself was a kind of comic plot, the happy denouement of which could only be masculinity” (Hudson 1996, p. 141).
In the case of AYLI, some propose that “while Shakespeare affirms Rosalind’s articulate and unruly nature, he does so not from a feminist perspective but rather from self-interested motives—from a desire to represent the dramatist as an innovative, emergent author, and he does so by associating the dramatist with an antipatriarchal, anti-authoritative, and hence, feminine or effeminate (via Ganymede) aesthetic” (Prendergast 1999, p. 123). The level of sexual transgression in theory was strong, but in practice remained little more than a means to create and abate tension to retain the interest of the audience.
Bibliography
- Alexander, Catherine M.S. and Stanley Wells.(eds) (2001) Shakespeare and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge U P.
- Bono, Barbara J. (1992) “Mixed Gender, Mixed Genre in As You Like It.” From Harold Bloom (ed). Rosalind. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers.
- Carroll, William C. “Forget to be a Woman.” (1992) From Harold Bloom (ed). Rosalind. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers.
- Charney, Maurice. (2000) Shakespeare On Love & Lust. New York: Columbia U P.
- Crawford, Julie. (2003) “The Homoerotics of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan Comedies.” From Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (eds) A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works. Volume 3: Comedies. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Garber, Marjorie. (1992) “The Education of Orlando.” From Harold Bloom (ed) Rosalind. Chelsea: Chelsea House Publishers.
- Gorman, Sara (2006). “The Theatricality of Transformation: Cross-dressing and Gender/Sexuality spectra on the Elizabethan stage”. [Online Resource] Available at: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=curej
- Hudson, Lorna. (1996) “On Not Being Deceived: Rhetoric and the Body in Twelfth Night.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 39.
- Lowenthal, David. (1997) Shakespeare and the Good Life: Ethics and Politics in Dramatic Form. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
- Osborne, Laurie E. (1996) The Trick of Singularity: Twelfth Night and the Performance Editions. Iowa City: U of Iowa P.
- Prendergast, Maria Teresa Micaela. (1999) Renaissance Fantasies: The Gendering of Aesthetics in Early Modern Fiction. Kent: Ohio Kent U P.
- Rackin, Phyllis. “Shakespeare’s Crossdressing Comedies.” From Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (eds) A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works. Volume 3: Comedies. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Shapiro, Michael. (1994) Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines & Female Pages. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P.
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