The Transgender Reading of Twelfth Night and Critical Comparison of Cesario as Shakespeare’s Himself (original) (raw)
Related papers
Viola in-between: the enigmatic figure of the eunuch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Margins and Forgotten Places, 2021
Early modern England playgoers were accustomed to see young boys interpreting women characters on stage, still, the theatrical representation of gender and sex was usually built on a set of normative, binary rules which enabled the audience to accept what David Mann defined “the artifice of performance” of cross-dressing boy actors. However, the presence of non-binary characters could destabilize the recognition of gender identity, raising questions that have both a dramaturgical and a socio-cultural impact. The eunuch is a perfect example of enigmatic gender performativity that can be recognized as a marginalized figure. Incapable of procreating, and deprived of sexual expression, the eunuch is relegated by society to specific occupations: he is the perfect servant of the court or the charming singer. In Shakespeare’s drama, the eunuch is always associated with specific vocal traits or references to musical instruments used as sexual metaphors. In this light, the auditory culture of the time participates in gender performativity, playing a pivotal role in the delineation of the character’s identity. My paper investigates Shakespeare’s references to the eunuch as a dramaturgical trope, specifically focusing on the character of Viola whose intention, in Twelfth Night, is to be presented “as a eunuch”. This passage has been defined as “the most conspicuous forgotten project” since hereafter Shakespeare seems to abandon the idea of Viola’s role as a eunuch. I will show how the eunuch trope actually recurs in the comedy, particularly with respect to Viola/Cesario’s identity which I will define in-between. Viola’s transvestitism succeeds because she’s able to perform the social role of the marginalized eunuch. Most importantly, Viola/Cesario’s identity as a eunuch is convincing primarily because of her/his voice: a pivotal aspect of the character is indeed its vocal ambiguity. By focusing on the auditory aspects participating in Viola’s disguise, I will show how Shakespeare problematises the gender ambiguity of the eunuch trope.
During his lifetime Shakespeare had created many characters both in his tragedies and comedies. In comedies the female characters were noteworthy enough than male characters for their wit, smartness, presence of mind, sensibility and modernism. While dealing with the drama "Twelfth Night" an unsaid comparison between Viola and Olivia comes into the minds of the readers. A simple analysis of those characters show Viola as more matured person than Olivia. But human characters are not such thing which can be described in a sentence. A grave study shows Viola as a cleverest character who makes a great use of love sickness of Duke Orsino and Olivia's hidden urge for sexual love.
Gender as an incidental aspect of love in Twelfth Night
International Journal of Research, 2015
Orsino thus realizes that he loves Viola as a female rather than Olivia as he had been subliminally attracted to his effeminate eunuch in the play throughout and now that it is disclosed that she is indeed the beautiful Viola it is Viola in her female dress that he loves instead. Twelfth Night thus discloses, with the ready falling in love of Olivia with Sebastian and Orsino with Viola at the end of the play that gender is incidental to love as it is the person and character of Viola that Orsino has come to love and that indeed Olivia had fallen in love with Viola as Cesario. Keywords: Twelfth Night, Gender, Sexual ambiguity, Love, Romance
Margins and Forgotten Places, 2023
Pubblicato con il contributo della Scuola di Dottorato dell'Università degli Studi di Verona e il sostegno di Vecomp SpA. L'immagine di copertina si intitola Confine, realizzata dall'artista veronese Luca Pinamonte (2015, Olio su tela, 100x80cm). Si ringrazia l'artista per aver permesso al Comitato organizzativo di utilizzare l'immagine come manifesto della Conferenza e copertina del presente volume. Il canto V dell'Iliade di Maffei: i marginalia come laboratorio del traduttore, di Luigia Buffatti 231 Scrivere ai margini. Don DeLillo e la poetica dello spazio, di Simone Carati 243 Margini in prosa lirica. I conflitti etnici nelle prose di Francesco Biamonti, di Simone Pettine 253 Die Freiheit packt einen wie der Regen aus dem Himmel. Memory and emotion as theatre experience in Perikızı.
Sexual Transgression for Power and Identity: A Glimpse on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2015
Crossing social restrictions for identity and status is o en the act of dissatisfying group in every society. Shakespearean society which was basically patriarchal and male-dominate set strict restrictions to impose on women's sphere. However, the suppressed women's voice sometimes denied the social restrictions in di erent ways as cross-dressing going beyond the boundary of women's sexuality. Cross-dressing as sexual transgression was o en committed in the actual life of English Renaissance and also in the literary world for independent identity, power and authority. In this regard, this article tries to explore on the sexual transgression committed by the main female character, Viola in the play Twel h Night to get identity and ful ll her inner desire challenging the socially prescribed norms of gender and sexuality.
Shakespeare presents a fascinating exploration of the manipulation and construction of gender and identity in Twelfth Night. Through a common theatrical practice of disguise in drama, the bard explores the significance of gender and identity in relation to performance, bringing in the performative aspect of gender and identity. Throughout the play text, Viola-Cesario's identity, especially her / his gender, remains elusive. She / he sexually appeals to both man and woman: Olivia is attracted by "him," and so is Orsino. In disguising as a man, Viola constructs a male semblance through an imitation of the image of her supposedly dead brother Sebastian, a gesture hinting at the cultural construction of one's gender identity, a construction that culminates here in the sumptuary codes and gender performance. Viola's cross-dressing disguise explicitly illustrates the fashioning of one's identity through clothing. It is a fashioning reflecting socially imposed and regulated construction on one's gender identity. Moreover, the performative aspect of gender intelligibility in Viola's disguise as Cesario highlights the volitional construction of one's gender identity on the stage. The ambiguity inherent in the character of Viola-Cesario challenges the belief in a coherent and stable gender identity. The meaning and nature of sexual identity, therefore, are not fixed, stable, or permanent, as they seem to be. Moreover, the sense of ambiguity and split inherent in Viola's disguise does not evaporate with the final revelation of her identity. On the contrary, the split male part is to be materialized and subsumed in the character of Sebastian, facilitating Olivia's transference of passion from Cesario to Sebastian.
Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, 2017
This review resulted from a discussion with a group of students during their Shakespeare in London classes (Spring 2017). Since the first 'review' of Twelfth Night was written by John Manningham, himself a student in 1602, this text is not just a comment on a current performance, but also a homage to a distant colleague and Shakespeare aficionado. Simon Godwin's production does not like mourning; in fact, it rebels against it. Olivia personifies this resistance. In a little black dress and black lace stockings, her hair in two large bunches-like Minnie Mouse ears-Phoebe Fox played Lady Olivia as a mixture of breezy school girl and sexy cocktail party hostess, dancing wildly to music and generally disporting herself. When 'veiled' for Cesario's entrance, she and the ladies of her female household wore designer sunglasses in the glamorous manner of the Hollywood jet set. This production took to heart Olivia's own advice, stressing that which is 'generous, guiltless and of free disposition' (1.5.87). Whatever the darker emotional lining of this silvery cloud, it emerged gradually around ideas about the nature of gender and desire. The most direct consequence of the emphasis on the jollity of Shakespeare's play was the erasure-or at least the partial eclipse-of its darker tones. Viola's 'green and yellow melancholy' (2.4.113) went for very little and the nuanced delicacy of the flirtation between her (Tamara Lawrance), Orsino (Oliver Chris) and Olivia was the first casualty of this accent on fun. While all actors spoke their parts well, the play became more of a comic romp than an examination of the pain of loss or the bewilderments of misdirected ardour. Act 3 Scene 1 was set by a pool where Olivia, in an orange halter-neck swimming costume, tempted Cesario with her semi-nudity and was dismayed by his indifference to this carnal display: 'To one of your receiving / Enough is shown' (3.1.191-2). Inevitably the action climaxed with her pulling the dressed Cesario into the water which was throughout suggestive of mutability and desire.