Cross-dressing in Literature

This paper explores how the character of Ophelia in Hamlet stylistically and conceptually challenges the traditional figure of the young heroine in Elizabethan revenge plays. Throughout his career, especially in the stage leading up to the writing of Hamlet in 1599-1600, the heroines of Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies, so different and so distinctive in character, play agential roles in the development of the plot, even when they do not necessarily find themselves at the centre of the story. The same can be said of the heroines in revenge tragedies of the time, such as Bel-Imperia in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster The Spanish Tragedy. Hamlet’s Ophelia, however, is a variation that becomes even more noticeable when compared to her direct generic and chronological predecessors.

Where, then, did Shakespeare look to instead of at his immediate theatrical precedents? The analysis of behavioural guides for gentle ladies of the period suggests that the source of inspiration for Hamlet’s heroine was probably, in fact, Elizabethan England’s Every(gentle)woman. The argument I present in this paper is supported by the close reading of Ophelia’s interaction with other characters throughout the first three acts of the play, during which she behaves exactly as the manuals suggest a lady should. The importance of this turn to nature -- to the reality of 16th century England -- instead of falling in line of the playwriting tradition is heightened by the fact that all female characters were played by young men during Shakespeare’s time. To the eye of the Elizabethan beholder, a more ‘realistic’ female character on the stage would remove by degrees the distance between the character on the page and the one on the stage.

"Dans son célèbre « roman matérialiste », Monsieur Vénus, Rachilde tisse tout un réseau d’images qui configure une nouvelle poétique du corps, indifférente à la doxa et irréductible à la transparence du cogito cartésien."
"[...] quasi un anticipo di certe postulazioni post-moderne, si direbbe che è il corpo stesso, prigione soffocante o maschera derisoria e crudele, ad essere indossato performativamente come una sorta di abito, a divenire medium opaco svincolato dal proprio referente."
[...] Sotto il gioco carnascialesco dei ruoli narrativi e delle configurazioni identitarie perturbate si smarriscono, in Monsieur Vénus,  le certezze canoniche del linguaggio d’uso nel gergo mutante o nella « étonnante perversion de la syntaxe » che approda a un « nouvel espace linguistique» """

In several works of colonial fiction, English characters are shown to adopt disguise to escape a potentially dangerous situation – such as the heroine in On the Face of the Waters (1896) by Flora Annie Steel – or simply to have access to places ordinarily closed to members of the colonizer society. Police officer Strickland, a recurrent character in Rudyard Kipling’s short stories who is modelled on Richard Burton, often dresses as an Indian man so as to become invisible in native places, to get keener knowledge of Indian customs, and to escape the British overpowering system of surveillance. Strickland thus happens to be both an instrument of British power and an agent of subversion within the colonial system. Dressing as natives paradoxically grants such characters greater liberty, if not double agency, in a country situated under British (white male) dominion. Conversely, a native character trying to dress as a member of Anglo-Indian society is almost inevitably seen by Europeans as a poor imitation of Englishness in such fiction. In another story by Kipling, “His Wedded Wife” (1887), a British soldier who is often bullied by his masculine, fellow-soldiers once happens to impersonate the officer’s wife in such an efficient way that his gender passing finally earns him the respect of his companions.
In many colonial stories, the adoption by cross-dressers of a subaltern persona and identity, in terms of race or gender, is part of a strategy of empowerment. Drawing on the concept of “subalternity” offered by Ranajit Guha in 1982, it is interesting to study the parallel between gender passing and racial passing as regards empowerment in colonial fiction as the two challenge the notions of stable subject-positions. Such an analysis also invites us to think of race, gender or class as less related to “identity politics” than to structures of power in the light of intersectionality. Finally, in the wake of “spectrality studies” which try to theorize, for instance, migrants’ invisibility as Esther Peeren does in her pivotal work The Spectral Metaphor (2014), one may wonder about the modalities underlying the visible paradox between empowerment, invisibility and subalternity in colonial fiction. How is one to get more agency by adopting the shape of figures widely known to be in a situation of minority, and as such, of presumed invisibility? How can subaltern invisibility become a site of empowerment?

The Merchant of Venice is a 16th-century comedy written by William Shakespeare, in which a merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Portia is a rich, gracious, charming, beautiful, intelligent and quick-witted heiress of Belmont; her only weakness is being a woman in the 16th century, which she quite wittily doesn't let get in her way of being the heroine and the main protagonist of the play. She is bound by the lottery set forth in her father's will, which gives potential suitors the chance to choose between three caskets composed of gold, silver and lead. If they choose the right casketthe casket containing Portia's portrait and a scrollthey win her hand in marriage. If they choose the incorrect casket, they must leave and never seek another woman in marriage. Portia is glad when two suitors, one driven by greed and another by vanity, fail to choose correctly, although she demonstrates tact to the Princes of Morocco and Arragon, who unsuccessfully seek her hand. She favours Bassanio, a young Venetian noble, and using her wit and intelligence, she does end up getting married to him. Later in the play, she disguises herself as a man, then assumes the role of a lawyer's apprentice (named Balthazar) whereby she saves the life of Bassanio's friend, Antonio, in court. In the court scene, Portia finds a technicality in the bond, thereby outwitting the Jewish moneylender Shylock and saving Antonio's life from the pound of flesh demanded when everyone else including the Duke presiding as judge and Antonio himself fails. Shylock leaves the trial with both his life and his job intact but retains only half of his money and is deprived of his identity on being forced to convert to Christianity, while his daughter Jessica and her husband Lorenzo with whom she had previously eloped are found in Portia's castle in complete happiness. Portia and Bassanio, on the other hand, continue to live together along with the former's lady-in-waiting Nerissa and her husband Gratiano.

The three-volume anthology Women and Cross-Dressing brings together a wide range of texts that deal with women whose clothing challenged gender norms. The Introduction sets the frame for this discussion. It expands definitions of female cross-dressing by discussing both texts that attempt to determine essential truths about femininity and masculinity and examples of women's actual and perceived gender transgressions from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of World War II. Texts discussed include scientific, literary and popular works including translations from European texts that impacted on British understandings of cross-dressing.

Martin von Troppau erwähnte 1277 in seiner Chronik das Pontifikat einer Frau, die als Johannes Anglicus um 850 für zweieinhalb Jahre das Amt des Papstes innegehabt hatte und später aus der Liste der Päpste entfernt wurde.

Seither rätselt die Welt über die Frage, ob dies die Wahrheit ist oder ob es sich um eine Legende handelt, die sich hartnäckig hielt. Hat es einst eine Päpstin gegeben? Und welche Folgen hat dies für die apostolische Sukzession und für die Frage, ob Frauen als Priesterinnen ordiniert werden sollen?
Das Fachbuch präsentiert neue Materialien und präsentiert eine verblüffende und konsistente Theorie.

See www.neovictorianstudies for original; Neo-Victorian Studies 9.2 (2017)

This article seeks to illustrate how cross-dressing functions to highlight not only a crisis of gender identity, as Marjorie Garber describes in Vested Interests (1992), but operates more broadly to indicate multiple and overlapping crises of sexual and racial identity. Using examples from three postcolonial neo-Victorian novels, Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love (1999), Elaine di Rollo's A Proper Education for Girls (2008) and Kate Pullinger's The Mistress of Nothing (2009), the article analyses the representation of characters who consciously fail to pass as 'other' when dressing across lines of race and gender. Using a postfeminist framework, the article challenges the assumption that seemingly independent female characters in neo-Victorian fiction automatically contest Victorian stereotypes of accepted female behaviour. Looking at the novels' representations of otherness, the article argues for the existence of a double Orientalism in postcolonial neo-Victorianism: a revived Victorian Orientalism within the texts as well as a renewed twenty-first-century Orientalism constructed between the present-day reader and the modern text itself.

This paper examines cross-dressing in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Reading the novel’s gender topsy-turviness in light of the carnivalesque 1910 Dreadnought Hoax, for which Woolf cross-dressed as an Abyssinian Prince, I explore the seductiveness of queer non-conformity. Rather than focusing on Butlerian socio-political theories on gender, I underline the existential dimension of clothes trouble. Focusing on Orlando’s love relationships and following Clotilde Leguil’s Lacanian reading of gender vacillation, I contend that Woolf’s fanciful biography pertains to Cixous’s écriture feminine as it connects sexual difference, love and writing.

El artículo analiza la Vida de Apolinaria / Doroteo (BHG 148) en el contexto de las vidas de santas travestidas de la Antigüedd tardía y los principales tópicos literarios que en ella aparecen. Además, se establece una estrecha conexión con la Vida de Hilaria, conservada únicamente en su versión copta y se postula el origen egipcio de esta Vida de Apolinaria.

This essay discusses the meanings and possibilities of trans readings. Taking departure in the multitude of cross-dressings, non-binary identities and gender variations of the history of literature, the essay argues for broad understandings of trans. Such themes are often impossible to translate into modern-day terms, but nonetheless vital to trans readings.  The essay also argues for alliances of different readings, attempting to engage in both similarities and di erences of intersex, lesbian, gay, and trans.  The category of trans is impossible to separate from other categories, and the so-called trans/cis binary is in itself an illusion. Still, that does not make trans any less fruitful as a point of departure; either as discussions of transing genders in  ction or the meanings of  ction for transgender persons.

Literary descriptions of shifting from and transgressing assigned sex were common in 19th Century Sweden. This thesis forms a contribution to the larger project of writing a history of Swedish trans literature, and develops new interpretations of certain works of fiction by applying a transgender studies perspective. Through trans readings the thesis also examines what potential and possible implications literature might have for trans people beyond the literary realm. Trans readings are able to supplement earlier research by providing a nuanced understanding of the production of trans- and cisgenders. The theoretical perspectives used in the thesis are drawn for the most part from queer and transgender studies. The thesis adopts a conceptual understanding of trans as a movement, and aims to widen the scope of what may be considered relevant to a history of trans literature.

The primary objects of analysis are the 1833 autobiography of widely known thief and cross-dresser Lasse-Maja (Lars Molin), C.J.L. Almqvist’s Drottningens juvelsmycke (1834), and Aurora Ljungstedt’s Moderna typer (1874). In closing, two texts from the fin-de-siècle are also closely read; Amanda Kerfstedt’s Reflexer (1901) and Frida Stéenhoff’s “Ett sällsamt öde” (1911). A wide range of other fiction is additionally studied in order to establish a contextual pattern of trans literary traditions.

The thesis demonstrates that trans permeates all kinds of fiction, and that the characters analysed construct both trans and cis gender categories. It concludes that trans is done in a variety of ways, and with a variety of meanings in 19th and early 20th century literature. Trans is often depicted as a positive, fruitful and desirable act, through trans characters who are both themselves subjects of erotic desire and who become symbols of liberty and emancipation. Other trans figures however are often counter images of what are considered to be correct sexes, and are depicted as threatening and/or ridiculous. Both these negative and positive representations of trans affirm the gender binary. At the same time, they also break and destabilize that same binary, and the trans characters in the study both can and cannot be interpreted as transgressing cis- and heteronormativity respectively.

This article examines Mexican writer Carmen Boullosa’s novel Duerme (1994). The narrator-protagonist, Claire, occupies various racial, social, and gendered identities throughout—both by choice and by obligation. Barthes’s notion of pleasure in The Pleasure of the Text suggests a productive reading of Duerme as a text that remains rooted in culture while unsettling the reader’s relationship to that culture, and thus to language and to history. This reading of Claire’s refusal of normalized behavior interrogates colonial social structures while also serving as a broader metaphor for a successful revolution in contemporary Mexico.

This article examines cross-dressing motifs in a selection of Swedish suspense fiction from the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. I argue that the contemporary usage of cross-dressing themes is part of a long tradition, and I analyse variations of this motif through the lens of (trans)gender history in order to establish the lineage of cross-dressing within the suspense genre. During the nineteenth century, cross-dressing in Swedish suspense literature was utilised to create mysteries and secrets. The purpose was to produce suspense, and the uncovering of the cross- dressing secret was often an important element of the plot. However, as a result of new connections between cross-dressing, homosexuality, perversion and mental illness made by sexology at the turn of the twentieth century, cross-dressing in suspense fiction took on new meanings. In contemporary Swedish literature, these motifs no longer create much of a mystery. Although the act of hiding is still central to the cross-dressing characters, as it was during the early years of the mystery genre, its main function in contemporary literature seems to be to identify the cross- dresser as pathetic, deceptive or both. Thus, there is certainly an on-going tradition of cross-dressing themes in suspense fiction, but these motifs have taken on significant new meanings.

The persistence of caste hierarchies and discrimination among the Christian faithful is one of the challenges that churches still face in India. While several studies have been devoted to the relation between caste and Christianity since the nineteenth century, the early modern period has attracted very limited attention. This article proposes junc-tures and figures that can illustrate the various approaches toward caste divisions held by the Catholic missionaries in India between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, namely, from the establishment of the Portuguese presence on the subcontinent until the Malabar Rites controversy. In particular, the article will suggest that, if missionary adap-tion (accommodatio) was based primarily on the incorporation of caste structures within the Church, unsuccessful attempts were made to root Christianity in the Indian context while criticizing local social hierarchies contradicting Christian values.

In the recent Bloomsbury publication Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, author Alison Matthews David chronicles the disturbing history of the failure of clothing to protect its wearers, despite the fact that protection has always been a primary motivation of dress. Even more alarming is the frequency of incidents in which clothing actually caused harm and even death to sufferers who were in many cases unaware of the source of their misfortune. Those with an interest in fashion history may be aware already of the basic types of clothing-related injuries; deformities of the foot and the spine from binding, strangulation from items such as scarves (most infamously in the case of actress Isadora Duncan), skirts prone to rapid ignition around an open flame, clothing as transmitters of infectious diseases, and garments laden with poisonous lead and mercury, among other dangers. The text provides a thorough and comprehensive overview of all of these fashion-related threats and others. David does not limit the scope of the text solely to clothing and accessories; descriptions of beauty and grooming health dangers are included, and the author goes into great detail about the ill effects suffered by wearers of various powders and creams in the pursuit of porcelain skin, of hair and eyelash dyes that caused blindness and other trappings of vanity. Since many of the same production techniques used in clothing production were also used in textiles for home furnishings, decorative items such as wallpaper are also included. David takes a broad view of what constitutes a fashion victim, the distinction is not limited to wearers of dangerous styles, but includes those individuals

"The first book-length study of romance novels to focus on issues of sexuality rather than gender, Historical Romance Fiction moves the ongoing debate about the value and appeal of heterosexual romance onto new ground, testing the claims of cutting-edge critical theorists on everything from popular classics by Georgette Heyer, to recent 'bodice rippers,' to historical fiction by John Fowles and A.S. Byatt. Beginning with her nomination of 'I love you' as the romance novel's defining speech act, Lisa Fletcher engages closely with speech-act theory and recent studies of performativity. The range of texts serves to illustrate Fletcher's definition of historical romance as a fictional mode dependent on the force and familiarity of the speech act, 'I love you', and permits Fletcher to provide a detailed account of the genre's history and development in both its popular and 'literary' manifestations. Written from a feminist and anti-homophobic perspective, Fletcher's subtle arguments about the romantic speech act serve to demonstrate the genre's dependence on repetition ('Romance can only quote') and the shaky ground on which the romance's heterosexual premise rests. Her exploration of the subgenre of cross-dressing novels is especially revealing in this regard. With its deft mix of theoretical arguments and suggestive close readings, Fletcher's book will appeal to specialists in genre, speech act and performativity theory, and gender studies.

'This welcome book makes an important contribution to the academic canon, offering new insights into women's writing, historical fiction and gender studies. Dr. Fletcher's research, grasp of her topic, and discussions of cross-dressing and gender representations are convincing, while her chapter on Georgette Heyer provides a valuable addition to the ever-increasing analysis of this popular author.' Jennifer Kloester

‘a work of significant theoretical weight which is balanced by the creative approach Fletcher takes to her primary material, and complemented by an engaging and lively prose style. ... an engaging and insightful study … which adds much to the field and raises fruitful questions for future scholarship in the area.’ Theresa Jamieson, Journal of Gender Studies

‘essential reading … for anyone interested in the popular romance.’ Pamela Regis, Journal of Popular Romance Studies

‘magisterial analysis of historical romance novels.’ An Goris, Journal of Popular Romance Studies

‘I was fascinated to have Lisa Fletcher convince me that I seem to have stumbled into rather a central node in the genre.’ Pam Rosenthal, "

The theater of Gabriel Téllez, better known as Tirso de Molina, frequently contains elements of female disguise and cross-dressing. In this study, the author examines four plays by Tirso de Molina in which female disguise is central to the plot. (La celosa de sí misma, El celoso prudente, Don Gil de las calzas verdes and El amor médico) In these texts, the use of female disguise is a means by which the female character is able to circumvent the conventions of society and gain a freedom to act that would otherwise be impossible. The danger that arises from this use of disguise is twofold. The first is the possibility of the premature revelation of the disguise. The second is that the character may lose herself in the disguise and act against her own interests. Both are examined here. Despite the potential dangers of disguise, in each play Tirso de Molina creates a strong female character who is able to manipulate events to achieve her goals. The author makes use of Jungian terminology and Foucauldian concepts of power and observation to examine the use of female disguise and cross-dressing as a power strategy, rather than in terms of sexuality, as is common in Lacanian approaches. Disguise in these plays is revealed to be a means to correct injustices and to achieve results that would otherwise be unobtainable.

RESUMO: O foco deste artigo é o tema da androginia, tematizado através das referências internas que se desenvolvem através das várias personagens das Bacantes de Eurípedes. Adotando uma abordagem de pesquisa queer, analiso o complexo mito de Tirésias (a personagem que abre a tragédia de Eurípides, com o primeiro episódio dialogado) com base na análise de Brisson, explicitando suas ligações simbólicas com a androginia. Através de uma série de referências cruzadas, a cegueira e o transexualismo de Tirésias emergem em meu argumento como estruturalmente equivalentes. Esta equivalência simbólica permitirá em seguida reler as correspondências entre a história mitológica de Tirésias e a de outros três personagens do drama: Acteon, Penteu e Dioniso. Estes três primos pertencentes à família real de Tebas também violam as normas de gênero. Desse modo, se extrai toda uma série de constantes simbólicas ligadas ao tema da visão, das serpentes, do travestimento, da interdição sexual, que são coerentes com o tema da androginia que-depois do Simpósio Platônico-encontra nas Bacantes um enlace textual importantíssimo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Dioniso; Tirésias; Androginia; Serpentes; Mito.

RIASSUNTO: Focus del presente articolo è il tema dell'androginia, tematizzato attraverso i rimandi interni che si sviluppano attraverso i vari personaggi delle Baccanti di Euripide. Adottando un approccio di ricerca queer, analizzerò il complesso mito di Tiresia (personaggio che apre la tragedia euripidea, col primo episodio dialogato) sulla scorta dell'analisi di Brisson, esplicitandone i legami simbolici con l'androginia. Attraverso una serie di rimandi, l'accecamento e il transessualismo di Tiresia emergono nella mia argomentazione come strutturalmente equivalenti. Questa equivalenza simbolica permetterà poi di passare a rileggere le corrispondenze tra la storia mitologica di Tiresia e quella di altri tre personaggi presenti nel dramma: Atteone, Penteo e Dioniso. Anche questi tre cugini appartenenti alla famiglia reale di Tebe violano delle norme di genere. In questo modo, si ricavano tutta una serie di costanti simboliche legate al tema della vista, dei serpenti, del travestimento, dell'interdetto sessuale, che risultano coerenti con quel tema dell'androginia che-dopo il Simposio platonico-trova nelle Baccanti uno snodo testuale importantissimo.

Barn- och ungdomslitteraturforskningen är en del av litteraturvetenskapen som de senaste låt säga 25 åren i allt större utsträckning har kommit att diskuteras utifrån begrepp som makt, normer och könsroller. Inom den barn- och ungdomslitterära genren konstrueras uppväxande subjekt som på olika sätt förhandlar fram sina egna positioner i samspel med omvärldens maktpåläggande värderingar; en process som synliggörs inte minst tydligt i tonårsfasen, då en alltmer pockande kroppslighet nödvändiggör en form av val mellan det gångbara respektive icke-gångbara inom en normativ kontext. Detta är utgångspunkterna för Maria Österlunds avhandling Förklädda flickor, i vilken 1980-talet undersöks som ett decennium då den till pojke förklädda flickan blev ett vanligt förekommande ungdomslitterärt motiv. Med utgångspunkt i elva mer eller mindre kända svenska romaner av både manliga och kvinnliga författare från tiden mellan 1977-1988 (som i denna undersökning sammanfattas under beteckningen ”1980-talet”), diskuterar Österlund förklädnadsmotivet med begrepp som representativitet, subversivitet och affirmativitet.

Ancient comedy is best taught with performance activities.  In the Wake Forest University general-education course Greek & Roman Comedy, students assigned to small-group adaptations of Aristophanes and Plautus have of their own accord chosen to use their performances to interrogate and explore gender patterns and ideologies in the plays and in their own societies -- with plenty of voluntary cross-dressing along the way.

El volumen se enmarca en el debate contemporáneo sobre la masculinidad -real o fingida- de las mujeres por medio de determinadas prácticas transgenéricas. Una ambigua y completa tradición que este ensayo trata de dilucidar acudiendo a una diversidad de orientaciones críticas, desde las teorías feministas posmodernas hasta los estudios culturales y de género. Además de indagar en el significado histórico de la praxis travestista en las sociedades patriarcales, el libro analiza numerosos casos tanto reales como literarios y artísticos de travestismos femeninos a fin de evaluar el impacto que ha tenido dicha estrategia.

“Interpreting the Gitana: Cross-Dressing and Translation in Lope de Rueda’s Medora,” suggests that in the play, cross-dressing functions within a system of translation that encompasses the fluid exchange between Spanish and Italian theatre.  Lope de Rueda’s Medora—featuring a Gitana playing the gypsy, and the self-declared converso and indiano, Gargullo— underscores the importance of transformation, translation, and cross-dressing in the genesis of the emerging Spanish Comedia.

Starting from the definition of "performativity" and "gender parody" developed by Judith Butler, this paper aims to investigate the performative functions of male cross-dressing within the dynamics of social categorization in classical Athens. For this purpose I have adopted an eclectic hermeneutic toolbox, borrowing elements from Harvey Sacks' Membership Catego-rization Analysis to René Girard's scapegoat theory. Through the philological analysis of some literary representations of transvestism, such as Pentheus' cross-dressing in Euripides' Bacchae, and the anthropological interpretation of the mythical-ritual complex relating to the effeminacy of Dionysus, my work focuses on the polyvalence of cross-dressing as an example of "rite of pas-sage" that works subliminally, despite the subversive appearance, functioning as an instrument of cultural hegemony.

In his Bellum Avaricum, George of Pisidia described the events of the 626 Avar siege of Constantinople. The siege posed a real threat to the city, which was aggravated by the absence of the emperor and the army in the city. Nevertheless, after several days, the Avars suddenly retreated and the unexpected withdrawal was perceived as a miracle.
The Bellum Avaricum contains numerous instances where the description of the main characters transgresses social and gender boundaries.Thus, George equals patriarch Sergius with the Mother of God in labours (lines 130-137), using highly gendered language. In turn, the Mother of God is presented as a surprisingly bellicose figure, while the Emperor Heraclius’ role is limited to prayers, despite his activities as a military commander. All three principal figures are shifted and take each other’s typical role.
Constantinople had seen numerous riots and violent overthrows at the beginning of the seventh century, Heraclius was far away from the city and his rule was a disaster. So maintaining the hierarchy and downplaying the common people’s role in the defence must have been very important for George. Cross-dressing Heraclius, Sergius and the Theotokos provided a way to show the audience of the poem the unexpected way how Heraclius and his close friend Sergius
influenced the battle.

Mediante el esbozo de un marco teórico y de un somero repaso de algunas de las invenciones literarias sobre el travestismo en la mujer es posible elucidar algunas implicaciones que demarcan la diversidad de este fenómeno tanto en la historia como en la letra impresa. De este asunto trata este artículo. Respaldándose en semejantes transgresiones, la mujer y el/la escritor/a de ficciones polemizan sobre cuestiones espinosas como la histórica desigualdad entre los sexos y la marginación femenina en el seno del patriarcado, así como la relatividad de las categorías "femenino" y "masculino", antaño enfrentadas. Así se observa cómo las equívocas polarizaciones y las fronteras desvaídas de tales nociones resultan ocasionalmente desjerarquizadas por numerosas prácticas individuales que tratan de desestabilizar rígidas demarcaciones conceptuales. Los trastocamientos a través de la indumentaria suscitan la proliferación de no pocas ambigüedades identitarias y de poderosas indecisiones relacionadas con la problematización de la tendencia sexual del sujeto o con el género con el que éste se identifica en lo más íntimo o que le es impuesto por la sociedad. Por ello mismo, la retórica del traje varonil adoptada por la mujer cuestiona asimismo las directrices autoritarias del discurso tradicional de la Nación, cuyos imaginarios y postulados se desgajan de una ideología artificialmente homogénea y monolítica que opera desde el interior del inconsciente comunitario liderando la estigmatización de todos aquellos patrones que no encajan dentro de las convenciones establecidas.

Cross-dressing is a pivotal element in John Donne’s “Elegy 16”, specifically his use of the page-disguise motif. This paper explores its nature and significance within the poem and the broader context of early modern English literature. By carefully reading the elegy in terms of the technical aspects and implications of Donne’s conception of disguise, it is argued that its non-normative translucence chiefly rests on his own personal politics of power and certainty. Therefore, the resultant realistic deviation, along with his concomitant articulation of the grotesque, are claimed to assume a paradigmatic quality in his poetry when bringing into final artistic shape his vast array of experiential raw material. *  * * * Este artículo explora el motivo del travestismo femenino en el poema del poeta metafísico John Donne, en concreto su uso del disfraz de paje dentro del poema y del contexto más amplio de la literatura inglesa (y europea) de finales del s. XVI y principios del XVII. Se sostiene que la traslucidez del disfraz, que John Donne aleja de la opacidad normativa del motivo, descansa sobre su conjunto de directrices personales sobre las estructuras de poder y certidumbre cognitiva.