Twelfth Night Essay: The Necessity of Cross-dressing -- Twelfth Night

The Necessity of Cross-dressing Twelfth Night The puzzle oution of Twelfth Night begins shortly after a damaging tempest shipwrecks the heroine, casting her upon inappropriate shores. Upon arrival in this strange seaport, Viola--like the Princess Leonide--dons male disguise which facilitates both employment and time enough to orient herself in this unfamiliar territory. Violas transvestism functions as symbolic of the antic nature of Illyrian society. As contemporary feminist and Shakespearean scholars are quick to point out, cross-dressing foregrounds not only the concept of role playing and so the constructed or performative nature of gender but also the machinations of power. Viola can only make her way in this alien land if she assumes the trappings--and with these garments the--privileges of masculinity. Her doublet and hose act as her passport and provide her with a livelihood, a love interest, and friendship (just as Leonides breeches allow her passage into Hermocrates garden). Violas male masquerade also calls upkeep to the more general theme of masking. As Cesario, Viola suggests that things are not always as they hold inm, that identities are protean, that self-deception rivals self-knowledge and that only Time can untie complicated knots. Coppelia Kahn points out that the cross-dressing in Twelfth... ... Critical Interpretations, ed. Harold Bloom (New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1987) 43. For further discussion on renaissance gender performance and identity politics among Shakespeares cross-dressed heroines, see Michael Shapiros Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage Boy Heroines and Female Pages (Ann Arbor The University of MIchigan Press, 1994). 6- Elliot Krieger, Malvolio and Class Ideology in Twelfth Night, late Critical Interpretation, ed. Harold Bloom (New York Chelsea HousePublishers, 1987) 24. 7- J.M. Lothian and T.W. Craik, In troduction, The Arden Shakespeare Twelfth Night , ed. Lothian and Craik (New York Routledge, 1 991) lvi.