Male-to-Female Crossdressing in Early Modern English Literature: Gender, Performance, and Queer Relations (Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture) - 9781138951211

This volume examines the oft-ignored phenomenon of male-to-female (MTF) crossdressing in early modern drama, prose, and poetry, inviting MTF crossdressing episodes to take a fuller place alongside instances of female-to-male crossdressing and boy actors' crossdressing, which have long held the spotlight in early modern gender studies. Chess argues that MTF crossdressing episodes are especially rich sources for socially-oriented readings of queer gender--that crossdressers' genders are constructed and represented in relationto romantic partners, communities, and broader social structures like marriage, economy, and sexuality. Further, she argues that these relational representations show that the crossdresser and his/her allies often benefit financially, socially, and erotically from his/her queer gender presentation, a corrective to the dominant idea that queer gender has always been associated with shame, containment, and correction. By attending to these relational and beneficial representations of MTF crossdressers, the volume helps to make a larger space for queer, genderqueer, male-bodied, and queer-feminine representations in conversations about early modern gender and sexuality.This book develops areas of inquiry in the fields of queer studies and performance studies in early modern literature by insisting that MTF crossdressing is a critical missing piece of the conversation about gender and performance in the early modern period. At the same time, the project applies contemporary trans* theory methodologies to early modern studies and is part of the ongoing work of historicizing contemporary queer and feminist studies.

• | Author: Simone Chess
• | Publisher: Routledge
• | Publication Date: Apr 20, 2016
• | Number of Pages: 196 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1138951218
• | ISBN-13: 9781138951211