1 Chapter 1 COUNTERFEITING TO BE MEN: MALE ROLE MODELS, IDENTITY, AND GENDER BASED DISGUISE In her Introduction to Speaking of Gender

Elaine Showalter posits: gender is not only a question of difference, which assumes that the sexes are separate and equal; but of power, since in looking at the history of gender relations, we find sexual asymmetry, inequality, and male dominance in every known society (2-4) (Gay, Notes, 181). Many Shakespearean comedies comment on this difference when women dress as men and, as a result, they inevitably deal with a power shift as well. Portia in The Merchant of Venice rules the courtroom, Rosalind changes the course of action in As You Like It, and Viola lifts the gloominess in Illyria. Specifically, in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, counterfeiting to be men obviously does not make Viola and Rosalind real men, but their gender-based disguises do allow them freedom, which, in turn, lends them power. These disguises also allow them a certain amount of autonomy, especially as they both embark on journeys into worlds with which they are unfamiliar: Rosalind exiled to the Forest of Arden and Viola shipwrecked on the unfamiliar shores of Illyria. These chapters discuss the power conveyed by clothes and assumed identities and analyze how Viola and Rosalind differ in their feelings for and use of this power. Specifically, and to varying degrees, Viola and Rosalind use their power to remark on socially-accepted male and female behavior, revealing the foolish wooing habits of the men in the process. They also utilize their power to rewrite their respective scripts, and in doing so, reveal that the power created through their gender-based disguises only works because of the women they were before the disguise. Regardless of what came before the disguise, however, in

2 the worlds of Arden and Illyria Viola and Rosalind need the influence of male attire to achieve their goals, because it empowers their individual situations, becoming simultaneously liberating and satisfying. However, gender-based disguise only conveys power because Rosalind and Viola are capable of wielding it. According to Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespeare was interested in how clothing and appearance can change or influence the way people see others. He supports this idea through the knowledge that Shakespeares father was elected town bailiff, a role that required ceremonial functions and special costumes. In his Introduction to the Norton Shakespeare, Greenblatt argues that the effect of this ceremony would convey a sense of power, reveal symbolism, and display the power of clothes, ultimately influencing perception and creating an awareness of how clothing conveys possibly fraudulent identities (9). In late 16th century England, of which the worlds of Arden and Illyria provide mirrors, costumes were a necessary function of both real and stage life, especially since all of the female roles on the Elizabethan stage were played by boys. Richard Hornby posits that setting up these multiple ironies of having a male play a female who in turn plays a maleexplores interesting areas of gender identification and raise[s] questions of human identity (68). Intriguingly, in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, both Viola and Rosalind initially adopt gender-based disguise for security purposes: Viola understands that she cannot wander an unknown country as a woman, much less be allowed admittance into Orsinos court, and Rosalind understands that the unknown Forest of Arden holds dangers for women travelling alone, especially for the daughter of the recently-deposed Duke. As a result, both women adopt disguises that not

3 only conceal their gender, but their class as well, which seems to add authenticity to the disguises of Cesario and Ganymede because the women are unhindered by social protocol. The women, then, do not merely adopt the guise of men but the guise of lowerclass men, which seems to allow them more freedom to enact stereotypical male behavior. Rosalind becomes a saucy lackey who plays the knave with Orlando, while Viola, who initially dresses the part of an eunuch to gain admittance into Orsinos court later becomes his messenger to Olivia (AYLI 3.2.287-8; TN 1.2.56). When this choice of disguise is compared with the courtly gentlemen of the plays, who range from Dukes to knights and lords, Viola and Rosalinds respective choices of gender-based disguises reveal both a gender and a social awareness that enables them further freedom. After adopting their disguises, both women discuss how their clothes reflect a fabricated self, while within they remain women who eventually use their respective disguises to woo the men they love. Constant reminders to the audience about charming outsides and condemnations of disguise as wickedness remind us that not only are Viola and Rosalind superficially playing male, but they are undeniably women despite the disguise. Their comments belie their false identities and reveal their true selves. Robert Kimbrough convincingly argues that in consciously using her disguise to act in a way that society will not allow a woman to act, [Rosalind] is more her real, essential selfor can move more easily to discovery and revelation of that essential self (25). Conversely, he argues that while Viola experiences human freedom and growth in male disguise, she feels constricted and self-conscious throughout Twelfth Night

4 (28). Thus, while Viola bemoans the pitfalls of her masculine masquerade, Rosalind seems to embrace her disguise as an extension of self. Despite these different attitudes though, as Ganymede and Cesario, Rosalind and Viola effectively fool everyone else around them, save those characters who knew of each disguise before it was donned. The dramatic blindness to the woman in the man may be symptomatic of the cultural blindness of the man in the woman. As a result of this blindness, Viola and Rosalind freely reveal the gap between appearance and reality in their imitation of foolish men. Despite Viola and Rosalinds dedication to their counterfeits, however, the fabricated male selves of Cesario and Ganymede reveal quite a bit of the woman beneath each disguise, and in this case, Violas Cesario seems noticeably weaker than Rosalinds Ganymede. I would argue that their extended success in counterfeiting as men hinges on their preconceived notions of socially-accepted male and female behavior and awareness of social hierarchy. Richard Hornby posits, role playing within the role is a device for exploring the concerns of the individualnot the individual in isolation, however, but in relation to his society (85). Rosalind and Violas gender and class-based disguises allow them to comment on societal and gender-based stereotypes and help us to understand the gender roles they perform, both in and out of their male disguises. In Cross-Dressing, the Theater, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England, Jean Howard discusses how cross-dressing, both as plot device on stage as well as backlash against societal norms off stage, threatened the strict principles of hierarchy and subordination (20). The sumptuary laws of the time regulated who could wear what

5 by class, but not by gender, and while Stephen Orgel argues that there existed a good deal of violent rhetoric about the heinousness of such cross-dressing, it was not illegal for women to dress in male attire (107). Orgel, like Howard, focuses on the fears of a patriarchal society about the power of women (107), and even the fictional, stage-based characters of Viola and Rosalind as Cesario and Ganymede appear to threaten this order. Dusinberre argues that the performance of gender in As You Like It creates, as the antitheatricalists in the Elizabethan period feared that it would, a vision of liberty, and Viola and Rosalind embrace a freedom they would have been denied without their male disguises (Introduction 13). However, while discussing the adoption of these genderbased disguises in both plays, one should consider the type of women Viola and Rosalind are before the disguise and how that influences the role they undertake within the disguise. For example, Viola and Rosalind already demonstrate boldness when they choose to disguise their gender in the first place, and, while other characters disguise themselves in various other ways, such as Celia demoting her status through costume and Feste donning a gown and beard to play Sir Topas, those dictating the action and consequences of these plays are Viola and Rosalind, although Viola undertakes a more passive role than Rosalind. These two characters take on roles far different from their own, roles that require more than a mere costume or status change; in fact, they require a commitment to gender exploration that the others do not. Both Rosalind and Viola base their individual counterfeits on numerous characters, some of a highly personal nature, such as Violas reincarnation of her supposedly dead twin brother Sebastian in the guise of Cesario, others of a stereotypical

6 nature, as in the case of Rosalinds Ganymede and then her layered portrayal of Ganymede-as-Rosalind. It is reasonable to assume that Rosalind and Viola use the men around them as models for their counterfeit. Their manner of dress and attitude could not have been fabricated from thin air; thus, their perceptions of what it means to be masculine inform their disguises, mirroring what they view as mans true nature. It seems easier for the audience to appreciate Viola and Rosalinds counterfeit when we look at the other men of the plays, who run the gamut of drunkards, absentee parents, usurpers, and fools, which is an interesting contrast to the mens high ranking social class. As opposed to these ever-present examples, Cesario and Ganymede represent the reality of man through their interpretation of the ideal not just because of the effectiveness of Viola and Rosalinds disguises but because of the foolish and self-centered nature of the other men of the play. Arguably, Cesario and Ganymede are better men than some of the men of these plays, since these gender-based disguises construct each woman as the man, and the men of the plays serve as weak, effeminate contrasts to this perceived male ideal as played by Viola and Rosalind. In Twelfth Night, some of the most important and influential men of the play are absent or rarely onstage: Olivias father and brother have recently died, causing Olivia to abjure the company and sight of men (TN 1.1.40-41). Viola believes Sebastian to be dead, and she references her own absent father only once in a recollection of his mentioning Duke Orsinos name. These absent men thus become the masculine ideal, and Viola seeks to represent this ideal through her role of Cesario. In contrast to this ideal,

7 the men present in the play epitomize various levels of foolishness, from Sir Andrews navet to Sir Tobys drunkenness to Malvolio and Orsinos arrogance and self-love. Indeed, Cesario proves a better model of ideal masculinity than even her own model, her brother Sebastian. After Orsino, the few male characters that remain include Antonio and the object of his desire Sebastian, who, in his own foolishness, accepts Olivia as his wife without knowing who she is or why she claims to know him: SEBASTIAN What relish is in this? How runs the stream? Or I am mad, or else this is a dream: Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep: If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep! OLIVIA Nay, come, I prithee; would thoudst be ruld by me! SEBASTIAN Madam, I will. (TN 4.1.59-64) Sebastian, in meeting Olivia for the first time, gives in to his baser instincts, even while he notes that there is something deceivable about Olivias love for him. Following his will so readily reveals his powerlessness over love, and ultimately in allowing himself to be ruled by Olivia, Sebastian reveals a stark difference between himself and Viola. In contrast to her brother, Viola has shown substantial willpower in not shedding her disguise, which would result in a relinquishing of control. Despite her feelings, Viola has not made any overt effort to earn Orsinos romantic love, choosing instead to remain silent, a blank. This willpower also manifests itself through an emotional response to Olivia, as Viola reveals genuine sympathy for her:

8 VIOLA How easy is it for the proper false In womens waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be. How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly, And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me: What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my masters love: As I am woman (now alas the day!) What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe? (TN 2.2.2838) Viola reveals that she is desperate for Orsinos love, yet unlike her brother who follows his will immediately, she reigns in her emotions and continues to woo Olivia in Orsinos name. As a result, the twins serve as effective gender contrast for each other, with Sebastian as the weaker of the two. Viola has proven herself stronger if only through her extended charade as Cesario, despite her feelings for Orsino and her troubles with Olivia. Specifically, Sebastian plays the woman to Olivia while Violas exercise of control reveals her dedication to her male role of Cesario. In As You Like It, Duke Senior is in exile, and the first men encountered in the play (besides Orlando) are Duke Frederick and Oliver, who are villainous, ambitious, and greedy. In contrast, Orlando and Adam, though presented as fair and good, also represent flight; their actions are reactionary to the initial male power and dominance as presented by the usurping Duke and Orlandos murderous and greedy older brother. In his altercation with his older brother, Orlando tells Oliver that he will no further offend you than becomes me for my good (AYLI 1.1.75-6), thus setting up a contrast between them, even as Oliver seeks to cause Orlandos death in the wrestling ring. The polarities

9 of good and evil and pacifist and violent characters are contrasted even more by Duke Fredericks antagonism toward Orlandos respected father Sir Rowland de Boys, of whom he tells Orlando: I would thou hadst been son to some man else. / The world esteemed thy father honourable, / But I did find him still mine enemy (AYLI 1.2.21315). In contrast, when Duke Senior discovers that Orlando is Sir Rowlands son, he welcomes Orlando, telling him that he loved his father. Despite this difference, however, the good Sir Roland de Boys is also a dead father who leaves his sons without a proper model, and this absence manifests itself in Orlandos feeble attempts at proclaiming love. In these two plays, the men in love (as epitomized by Orsino, Sebastian, and Orlando) are foolish while Rosalind and Viola are able to keep their wits about them, enough so that they do not discard their disguises despite the problems these disguises cause. Yet these male disguises donned by Viola and Rosalind only seem to become problematic for Viola, while Rosalind is far from condemning her disguise as wickedness. And while Rosalind has to deal with Phoebes love just as Viola has to deal with Olivias, Rosalind solves her own problem through her wit, while Violas problems are solved by the reappearance of Sebastian. As Jean Howard notes, unlike Rosalind, Viola freely admits that she has neither the desire nor the aptitude to play the mans part in phallic swordplay and that the purpose of the dramatic narrative is to release this woman from the prison of her masculine attire and return her to her proper and natural position as wife (33). Rosalind, however, according to Howard, uses her disguise to redefine (albeit in a limited way) the position of woman in a patriarchal societywhile dressed as a man, Rosalind impersonates a woman, and that woman is

10 herselfor, rather, a self that is the logical conclusion of Orlandos romantic, Petrarchan construction of her (36-7). Rosalind says herself that her clothes dont change her nature: Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? (AYLI 3.2.189-91). Here, Rosalind compares herself with her perception of what a man is, which is stereotypical in nature. It is also alternately her parody of the simplistic way in which men and society view women as well; thus Rosalind embodies both male and female stereotypical behavior within the guise of Ganymede and the additional layering of another Rosalind: Shakespeares Rosalind is both boy and girl, and must realize Ganymedes brashness not simply as a female pretence of maleness. This is not what Rosalind does. She becomes a boy playing a womans role: Ganymede playing Rosalind for Orlando to woo. But Ganymedes Rosalind is not our Rosalindthe wayward Rosalind is Ganymedes fictionalized capricious woman, just as Ganymede is our Rosalinds fictionalized brash boy with a swashing and a martial outside (1.3.117), whom the heroine promised to impersonate at the beginning of the play. (Dusinberre, As Who 24) Rosalind seems to relish the chance to sneer at the weakness of women (and herself) rather than to always be the brunt of such comments. As such, Rosalind also turns the tables to showcase stereotypical femininity as represented through her performance of Rosalind for Orlando and through her interactions with Phoebe. Viola too uses her Cesario disguise to comment on these stereotypical notions of femininity, especially in her conversations with Olivia, and she uses those ideas to condemn Olivia for her vanity when Olivia draw[s] the curtain to show Cesario the picture: Look you, sir, such / a one I was this present. Ist not well done? (TN 1.5.237-

11 8). Viola responds to this superficiality and pride by calling Olivia on it, telling her that she is too proud, but also by praising her, admitting that if Olivia were the devil, [she] is fair (TN1.5.255). Much like Viola, Rosalind too uses her preconceptions of femininity to rail against the idea that Phoebe could have written such an angry-tenored letter to Ganymede: ROSALIND I say she never did invent this letter; This is a mans invention and his hand. SILVIUS Sure, it is hers. ROSALIND Why, tis a boisterous and a cruel style, A style for challengers. Why, she defies me, Like Turk to Christian. Womens gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention, Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? (Reads.) Can a woman rail thus? (AYLI 4.3.28-36; 42) Rosalind does focus on the seemingly negative qualities stereotypical of women, such as pride in appearance and superficiality, yet she handles her disguise and subsequent adoption of masculine qualities well. As she tells Aliena: I could find in my heart to disgrace my mans apparel and to cry like a woman, but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. Therefore courage, good Aliena. (AYLI 2.4.4-8) Rosalind embraces the ramifications of her male disguise in her need to protect the weaker Aliena. Despite her success, however, Rosalind as woman must be reminded of

12 her male disguise only once, when Oliver tells Ganymede to counterfeit to be a man (AYLI 4.3.72) after Ganymede has fainted at the sight of Orlandos blood. This fainting spell is arguably the only instance of the play where Rosalinds feminine instincts are betrayed through her effective Ganymede disguise. Nancy Hayles argues that in this instance, her faint is a literal relinquishing of conscious control; within the conventions of the play, it is also an involuntary revelation of female gender because fainting is a feminine response. It is a subtle anticipation of Rosalinds eventual relinquishing of the disguise and the control that goes with it (66). The heroines cross-dressing in both plays also demonstrates the instability of gender. In As We Like It: How a Girl Can Be Smart and Still Popular, Clara Claibourne Park argues that Rosalinds disguise, and to a lesser extent, Violas, allow the two to be assertive, and this assertiveness is accepted by characters and audience alike only because the two are dressed as men. She claims that with male dress we feel secure. In its absence, feminine assertiveness is viewed with hostilityMale dress transforms what otherwise could be experienced as aggression into simple high spirits (108). Phoebe calls Ganymede peevish and proud, yet also states that this pride becomes him. / Hell make a proper man (AYLI 3.5.115-16). Cesario is seen as a boy who was saucy at the gates and who began rudely, yet in the second visit to Olivia, Olivia exclaims: If one should be a prey, how much the better / To fall before the lion than the wolf! (TN 3.1.130-31). Later, she adds that when wit and youth is come to harvest, / Your wife is like to reap a proper man (TN 3.1.134-35). Viola and Rosalind accent these gender stereotypes on purpose and with purpose, as each is determined to continue the

13 counterfeit to ensure her own safety. However, while Cesario and Ganymede adopt the clothing, stance, walk, and voice of a boy, Viola and Rosalinds ideas, conversational traits, and feelings are female. Conversely, the womanly tears and the pining for love exhibited by Orsino does not seem to fit the male image well, yet the male characteristics of Cesario and Ganymede suit Viola and Rosalind. In his discussion of mannish women on the stage, Orgel argues that this anxiety about women and their role in a patriarchal society was a much-written about discourse during the English Renaissance. His most effective example stems from John Knoxs A Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558), which articulates these strict gender categories for readers: A man in his natural perfection is fierce, hardy, strong in opinion, covetous of glory, desirous of knowledge, appetiting by generation to bring forth his semblable. The good nature of a woman is to be mild, timorous, tractable, benign, of sure remembrance, and shamefast. These gender polarities, of fierce and mild and strong in opinion and timorous, are inverted in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, and Viola and Rosalind exhibit fierceness, boldness, and strength of opinion both before their adoption of disguise as well as after. Stephen Orgel remarks that this destabilization of categories question[s] what it means to be a man or a woman, and despite the fact that Rosalind and Viola retain some feminine characteristics even as they dress, walk, and talk like men, the power they achieve through their gender-based disguise rejects a strict categorization. Orgel argues that society has an investment in seeing women as imperfect men and that the real danger is recognized when women reveal that they have an independent

14 essencenot under male control. He adds that more dangerously, this independent essence is not simply a version or parody of maleness, but is specifically female (63). Rosalind and Viola, then, achieve power through their respective disguises, in their parody of maleness, but also reveal their true power through their independence, which is obviously in the play not under male control. Besides Rosalind and Viola, however, other characters have their share of problems with stereotypical representations of male and female behavior. Catherine Belsey argues that the men of Shakespeares plays are not equally courageous, but they are all less vulnerable than women because they look like they can defend themselves (641). Like Rosalind, Orlando utilizes his share of disguises in As You Like It, but Orlandos are less successful; thus the womens struggles with their parts are understandable, since Orlando struggles with an even lesser endeavor in his attempt at a mask of aggressiveness. In her introduction to the Arden edition of the play, Juliet Dusinberre argues that Shakespeare has rewritten the script of masculinity as the Elizabethans knew it. She adds: Just as Rosalind explodes myths of feminine sexuality so the figure of Orlando revises the binaries of violent masculinity and gentle femininity. Orlandos characteristic gentleness contrasts strongly with the male persona of Ganymede as imagined and played by Rosalind. (32) Orlandos problems stem mainly from the nature of his disguise: as a wrestler, belying his status as a gentleman, and in his faux aggressive mask of masculinity performed when he comes upon the Duke and his men in the Forest of Arden. Orlando, arriving with sword drawn to demand food for Adam from Duke Senior and his men, belies his

15 characteristic gentleness through a countenance of stern commandment, yet when he realizes that this manly guise is unnecessary, he acquiesces: DUKE SENIOR What would you have? Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness. ORLANDO I almost die for foodand let me have it. DUKE SENIOR Sit down and feed and welcome to our table. ORLANDO Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you. I thought that all things had been savage here And therefore put I on the countenance Of stern commandment. But whateer you are, That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time If ever you have looked on better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church, If ever sat at any good mans feast, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, And know what tis to pity and be pitied Let gentleness my strong enforcement be, In the which hope, I blush and hide my sword. (AYLI 2.7.103-20) Dusinberre notes that this reference to blushing is a dramatists trick to make the word suit the action, since in the theatre, [a blush] must exist in language rather than in physical showto signal the feminine identity assumed by the boy actor (AYLI Introduction, n.28-9 162). However, in this case, the blush is not attributed to a female character of the play but to Orlando, who just a few scenes earlier threatened his brother with pulling out his tongue for disparaging their father and wrestled Charles, who had no

16 intent to let Orlando live. Yet two scenes after this interaction with Duke Senior and his men, Orlando hangs his verses on the trees, which serves as a direct contrast to his previous role of aggressor. As such, he represents something more than his true self in his adoption of Petrarchan convention and seems to embody the idea that gender itself is a disguise. However, this passage is as much about class difference and gentlemanly status as it is about gender. Duke Senior, as the model of a gentleman, especially in contrast to the savage Duke Frederick, resorts to speech instead of action, telling Orlando that his gentleness shall force more than [his] force move to gentleness, and it is through speech and not violence that he is able to convince Orlando to acquiesce. Additionally, Sir Andrew serves as an example of a character who, while male, fails to attain this ideal of masculinity, and his lack of courage is most obvious as he is set to duel Viola-as-Cesario. Toby has to talk up the effeminate Sir Andrew to Cesario before their duel and vice versa, and this talk is an effort by Toby to make both Cesario and Sir Andrew real men. In fact, Viola is so afraid of her impending encounter with Sir Andrew that she reveals in an aside Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man (TN 3.4.307-09). Likewise, upon hearing from Sir Toby that Cesario awaits, Sir Andrew tells Toby that hell not meddle with him and that he is willing to let the matter slip even though Sir Andrew initiated the challenge (TN 3.4.285; 291).Yet, even as Viola exclaims that this duel is against [her] will, both she and Sir Andrew draw swords, which seems to speak more to Tobys powers of persuasion rather than Viola and Sir Andrews willingness to fight. It is interesting to

17 note that if Viola admitted her true sex that Sir Toby and Sir Andrew would have been not only reluctant but also unwilling to fight Cesario. Sebastian and Antonio, on the other hand, are quick to draw and quick-tempered, resorting to physicality instead of speech. As soon as Antonio wanders into the swordfight between Sir Andrew and Cesario, whom he believes to be Sebastian, Antonio immediately draws his sword, which is an ironic contrast to the preceding lines, where Sir Andrew and Cesario were forced to draw theirs merely because of a prodding audience: ANTONIO [Drawing] Put up your sword! If this young gentleman Have done offence, I take the fault on me: If you offend him, I for him defy you. SIR TOBY You, sir? Why, what are you? ANTONIO One, sir that for his love dares yet do more Than you have heard him brag to you he will. (TN 3.4.318-24) Orgel argues that Antonio is the real man of the play, the fighter-pirateand lover of boyswho endscoupled with no one. He adds, Falling in love with real men in Shakespeare is a dangerous matter: the model for it is provided in Othello (82). If Antonio is indeed the only real man of the play, then his masculinity, temper, and physicality is what separate him from the more effeminate Sir Andrew and the disguised Viola. It seems that in playing male, there is always an undercurrent of a return to female, of male being but a necessary disguise or costume until the proper ends can be

18 achieved in Act V, (that being marriage, of course). In Forget to be a Woman, William Carroll posits only when a woman is trying to get a man must she become a man Rosalind and Viola achieve marriage only after the necessary detour through transformation (127). However, Aliena and Olivia do not become men to get their man, which complicates Carrolls argument. I would argue that Aliena and Olivia get their men specifically through the actions of Viola and Rosalind as Cesario and Ganymede, and without these gender-based costumes, they too would be alone at the end of their respective plays. In The Boy Heroine on the English Renaissance Stage, which explores the sexual ambiguity of gender roles, Phyllis Rackin notes: By playing the boys part of Ganymede, Rosalind enables Silvius to marry Phoebe. By playing the girls part of Rosalind, she enables Orlando to marry herself. These heroines transvestite disguises are neither fully repudiatednor fully authenticated. Instead, they become provisionally real, as, for instance, in Twelfth Night, Violas disguise as the boy Cesario is both repudiated when she marries Orsino and authenticated when her twin brother, Sebastian, marries Olivia. (31) Penny Gay argues that this return to female at the end of As You Like It is a return to the real world and its social constraints, yet she adds that Rosalinds behavior prior to this reconciliation represents the most thorough deconstruction of patriarchy and its gender roles in the Shakespearean canon; yet it is a carnival license allowed only in the magic space of the greenwood (49). The same is true in Twelfth Night as well, in its return to the real world and its constraints. In Cross-Dressing, the Theater, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England, Jean Howard discusses how, in a power rolereversal, Olivia initially wields power in the play while Orsinos power is displaced:

19 [Orsinos] narcissism and potential effeminacy are displaced, respectively, onto Malvolio and Andrew Aguecheek, who suffer fairly severe humiliations for their follies. In contrast, Orsino, the highest-ranking male figure in the play, simply emerges from his claustrophobic house in Act V and assumes his rightful position as governor of Illyria and future husband of Viola. (34) Restoring this natural patriarchy goes hand in hand with Violas return to female at the end of the play, and although Orsino has been viewed as whiny, obstinate, and slightly effeminate, by the end of the play, he is once again the powerful Duke of Illyria who orders Fabian to persue Malvolio, continues to call Viola Cesario while she is a man, and speaks the last lines of the play, save Feste's song. Olivia too is put in her rightful place through this shift, as Orsino commands her servants in her own house. Thus order is restored in Orsinos role through the reclaiming of his power while Olivias seems to wan. While Rosalind and Viola are successful in their attempts to counterfeit the male gender through the guises of Ganymede and Cesario, they do make a return to female by the end of the play, just in time for marriage or in Violas case, the promise of marriage. However, before this happy resolution, Viola encounters problems with her disguise, unlike Rosalind. Viola admits to feeling as if there is no exit possible from her disguise and leaves events to time instead of, as Rosalind does, to her wit and intelligence. By contrast, Rosalind, despite her return to typical patriarchal conventions at the end of the play, turns that convention once again on its head in her cheeky Epilogue.

20 Chapter 2 ROLE PLAYING WITHIN THE ROLE: THE BUSY ACTORS OF AS YOU LIKE IT AND TWELFTH NIGHT In Drama, Metadrama, and Perception, Richard Hornby explains that among other things, role playing within the role is an excellent means for delineating character, by showing not only who the character is, but what he wants to be (67). He elaborates, when a playwright depicts a character who is himself playing a role, there is often the suggestion that, ironically, the role is closer to the characters true self than his everyday, real personalityShakespeares Portia and Rosalind and Viola dress up as men, and in doing so reveal the masculine side of their natures, their boldness, levelheadedness, and persuasiveness (67). It seems that when Rosalind and Viola dress as boys they are better able to reflect their true personalities, which Hornby defines as masculine. The idea that the womens true characters are revealed through their disguises either demonstrates how constrained they were by their previously feminine roles or suggests that these masculine qualities are situational, since Rosalind has been banished and Viola is alone. However, Rosalind exhibits more continuity than Viola in her shift from woman to boy back to woman, and the effect of the double role of Rosalind as Ganymede and then Ganymede as Rosalind demonstrates the natural ease with which she reveals these traits. As a result, Rosalinds disguise achieves a success that Violas does not, especially since Rosalinds disguise reveals more of her true character than Violas, despite the layering of disguises Rosalind assumes compared to Violas single alternative identity. Rosalind reveals her personality and love for Orlando even through the guise of Ganymede, (and Ganymede-as-Rosalind), while Viola-as-Cesario must ever hide behind the role created,

21 unable to exhibit true emotion or feelings for Orsino. Because of this difference, Rosalinds end is happier than Violas, as Viola has to find herself again at the end of Twelfth Night, while Rosalinds characteristics never changed even while disguised. Whatever the reasons or the situations governing the use of disguise, our two heroines more masculine qualities, as defined by Hornby, are evident long before their foray into a gender-based disguise and most evident in the beginnings of both plays, with Rosalinds speech to her uncle after his threat of banishment and Violas decision to dress as a eunuch when she lands on the shores of Illyria. In As You Like It, this early understanding of Rosalinds true nature occurs specifically when Rosalind responds to her uncles threats and suspicion with intelligence, poise and effective counter-argument: ROSALIND Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me: If with myself I hold intelligence Or have acquaintance with mine own desires, If that I do not dream or be not frantic, -As I do trust I am not -- then, dear uncle, Never so much as in a thought unborn Did I offend your highness. DUKE FREDERICK Thus do all traitors. If their purgation did consist in words, They are as innocent as grace itself. Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not. ROSALIND Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor. Tell me whereon the likelihoods depends? DUKE FREDERICK Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.

22 ROSALIND So was I when your highness took his dukedom; So was I when your highness banish'd him: Treason is not inherited, my lord; Or, if we did derive it from our friends, What's that to me? My father was no traitor: Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much To think my poverty is treacherous. (AYLI 1.3.42-62) Rosalinds pivotal response here reveals not only effective arguing technique, but also a self-awareness that seems lacking in many of Shakespeares other characters, including Viola. When Rosalind responds to Duke Fredericks charge of espionage in this exchange, Juliet Dusinberre, editor of the Arden Edition, notes that by Rosalinds mention of intelligence, she effectively affirms her truth by claiming self-knowledge, pointedly rejecting the associations of the word intelligence with spying (181). In addition, Hornbys charge that by dressing as a man, Rosalind reveals the more masculine side of her nature proves moot here, since his definition of masculine includes the traits of boldness and levelheadedness, which Rosalind displays quite effectively in this Act I exchange before her use of disguise. While this example seems to counter Hornbys argument, I would argue that it does effectively foreshadow Rosalinds later ability to counterfeit as a man, as her disguise seems one merely of clothing and appearance. As such, her masculine characteristics as Hornby defines them were already a part of her nature before the role of Ganymede, and these traits are evident throughout the play. Later, when Rosalind and Celia don their disguises, Rosalind announces that in her heart, Lie there what hidden womens fear there will, / Well have a swashing and a martial outside (AYLI 1.3.116-7). Dusinberre notes that Rosalinds

23 commentary on the duality of outer/innerman/woman or woman man mirrors a 1588 speech given by Queen Elizabeth I to her troops in Tilbury, when she tells them that she has the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but [I] have the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of England too (Introduction 11). Rosalind, like Elizabeth, is indeed her fathers daughter, one who puts to rest the issue of gender and effectively displays her power despite the perceived limitations of her gender. Viola, unlike Rosalind, demonstrates some of these same traits in the beginning of Twelfth Night, but she soon succumbs to the pressure of role-playing, something that Rosalind seems to rise above despite the problems presented by her disguise (which actually also involves role playing as well). When we first meet Viola, she has only just survived a shipwreck and is mourning the supposed loss of her brother Sebastian. However, just minutes after her initial mourning, Viola establishes a context for her surroundings and immediately devises a plan for her own survival in Illyria, which, ironically, hinges on her trust of the Captains outward character. Regardless of her motivation, this decision to hide her gender demonstrates her own level-headedness and boldness akin to Rosalinds: VIOLA There is a fair behavior in thee, Captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character. I prithee (and Ill pay thee bounteously) Conceal me what I am, and be my aid For such disguise as haply shall become The form of my intent. Ill serve this duke; Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him. It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,

24 And speak to him in many sorts of music, That will allow me very worth his service. What else may hap, to time I will commit; Only shape thou thy silence to my wit. (TN 1.2.47-61) Even after the catastrophe of a near-death experience, Viola keeps her wits about her and realizes that she cannot call too much attention to herself, thus her use of disguise. The main difference between Rosalind and Viola, however, is that while Rosalind maintains this boldness and level-headedness throughout the play, Viola only allows it to resurface one more time after this conversation with the Captain. When Viola, dressed as Cesario, speaks to Olivia before the willow cabin speech, she returns to this forcefulness that she revealed when speaking with the Captain, when she tells him to conceal me what I am (TN 1.2.53). Viola tells Olivia that she is vain, and her bold statements to Olivia are out of character for Cesario, yet believable from Viola only if we remember her selfawareness and ability to speak her mind as exhibited in the beginning of the play. Here, Viola as Cesario breaks character and chastises Olivia for her superficiality and pride: VIOLA I see you what you are, you are too proud: But if you were the devil, you are fair, My lord and master loves you: O, such love Could be but recompensd, though you were crownd The nonpareil of beauty!... If I did love you in my masters flame, With such a suffring, such a deadly life, In your denial I would find no sense, I would not understand it. (TN 1.5.254-58; 268-71) Once she has left the text of her message, Viola also leaves her role as Cesario, choosing instead to focus on how if she were in Olivias situation, she would find no

25 sense in denying Orsino his love. In leaving the deliberate nature of a penned speech in lieu of an emotional response, Viola uses her emotions as a form of rationality, trying to find reason in Olivias denial, telling Olivia that Orsino loves [you] and that this love, with such a suffring demands to be requited. Although Viola abandons her role of Cesario briefly in this encounter with Olivia, she maintains her role-play throughout the rest of the play, choosing to defer and play the role of Cesario rather than reveal the woman beneath. However, there is another role laying within the role of Cesario in Twelfth Night as well, since Viola bases her image of Cesario on her brother Sebastian. In effect, she is playing the role of Sebastian not just through her attire, but through her mannerisms as well, which she admits after Antonio mistakes her for Sebastian at the end of Act III: I my brother know / Yet living in my glass; even such and so / In favour was my brother, and he went / Still in this fashion, colour, ornament, / For him I imitate (TN 3.4.389-93). Trevor Nunns film version of the play sets this role-playing up nicely by including an additional scene in the movie version that is absent from Shakespeares play. In this scene that occurs just before the shipwreck itself, Viola and Sebastian participate in a gender-bending parlor show, in which Viola plays on the idea of male and female physical characteristics by wearing a fake moustache, which Sebastian eventually pulls off to the delight and surprise of the audience. This additional scene may speak to how Viola gathered the background material for her characterization of a male, specifically, Sebastian, in the form of Cesario.

26 Perhaps Rosalind is able to be herself in this role more easily than Viola because Viola is constrained by what her role represents: in essence, a dead brother. Hornby explains: role playing within the role sets up a special acting situation that goes beyond the usual exploration of specific roles; it exposes the very nature of role itself. The theatrical efficacy of role playing within the role is the result of its reminding us that all human roles are relative, that identities are learned rather than innate. (72) The only time we truly see Rosalind acting female is when she faints, and even then she tries to stay in character by convincing Oliver that she was counterfeiting in her response: OLIVER Be of good cheer, youth. You a man? You lack a mans heart. ROSALIND I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho OLIVER This was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. ROSALIND Counterfeit, I assure you. OLIVER Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man. ROSALIND So I do. But ifaith, I should have been a woman by right. (AYLI 4.3.163-75)

27 When Rosalind faints at the sight of Orlandos blood-stained napkin, according to Nancy Hayles in Sexual Disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, she demonstrates a relinquishing of her disguise which in turn foreshadows her discarding of the role of Ganymede at the end of the play in favor of reassuming the identity of Rosalind (66). Rosalinds mythological role model is less constricting than Violas mimicking of her brother, yet she carefully chooses her name, telling Aliena that shell have no worse a name than Joves own page, / And therefore look you call me Ganymede (AYLI 1.3.121-2). This name choice is a self-conscious appropriation, revealing Rosalinds ability to pre-plot and anticipate her future role as Joves page. In Greek mythology, Ganymede was a beautiful young man abducted by Zeus, (Jove in Latin) who took him to Mount Olympus. It is believed that Ganymede became Zeus lover and gained immortality as the constellation Aquarius. Dusinberre notes that Rosalinds name choice is richly provocative of the fears of anti-theatricalists because of its homoerotic associationsby [reminding] his audience of Joves passion for the boy Ganymede, but [it] also hints at the symbolic extension of the role to include omnipotence (AYLI, n.121-2, 187). Similar fears reign in Twelfth Night as well, especially in the improbable coupling of male and female identical twins in Sebastian and Viola. Janet Adelman argues that Twelfth Night enables not only the fantasy that one need not choose between a homosexual and a heterosexual bond but that one need not become either male or female, that one can be both Viola and Sebastian, both maid and man (91). These homoerotic undertones, produced through names and role-play also materialize in the conversations between Cesario and Orsino, a point driven home in Nunns production of

28 Twelfth Night, in which the two characters stare at each other with longing, despite Cesarios male disguise. At the end of the play, when Sebastian tells Olivia that she would have been contracted to a maid it seems a laughable offense, whereas when Orsino is mistook, further sexual implications exist (TN 5.1.259). For Viola there seems a constant imbalance between her male character and her socially constructed femininity. The sword fight between Cesario and Sir Andrew is a prime example of this paradox between Cesarios masculine outsides and the Viola who resides within. Although Sir Andrew himself certainly embodies a more effeminate characterization than even Cesario despite his gender, when the two are juxtaposed in the swordfight scene in Act III scene 4, Violas femininity is revealed starkly through Sir Tobys description of the two awaiting their swordfight: SIR TOBY [To Fabian] I have his horse to take up the quarrel. I have persuaded him the youths a devil. FABIAN He is as horribly conceited of him, and pants and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels. SIR TOBY [To Viola] Theres no remedy, sir, he will fight with you fors oath sake. Marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of. Therefore draw for the supportance of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you. VIOLA [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man. (TN 3.4.297-309)

29 Sprengnether argues that If femininity itself is defined as the condition of lack, of castration, then there is no way around the masculine equation that to be feminine is to be castrated, or as Antony puts it, to be robbed of ones sword (600). Viola focuses on this lack throughout the play, going so far as to admit I am not what I am (TN3.1.143). Rosalind, however, because of the fluidity with which she adopts her Ganymede disguise as well as her Ganymede-as-Rosalind role, embraces her new roles. Belsey argues that Rosalind, unlike Viola, is so firmly in control of her disguise that the emphasis is on the pleasures rather than the dangers implicit in the transgression of sexual difference (644). Rosalind seems more man-like in her role than Viola does in hers, and, although she is not physically challenged as Viola is by Sir Andrew, she has already stated at the beginning of the play that she will have a swashing and a martial outside, / As many other mannish cowards have / That do outface it with their semblances (AYLI 1.3.1179). The argument is one of assumption, but Viola reveals through her asides that her outward show has disintegrated, whereas Rosalind, if placed in the same predicament, would most likely continue the charade, despite the hidden womans fear in her heart (AYLI 1.3.115). Yet there is an additional and crucial difference between the two women and their roles: while Ganymede is allowed to almost pursue Orlando as his Rosalind, Cesario must ever hide behind the role created, unable to exhibit true emotion or feelings for Orsino, and in front of Olivia, Viola becomes Orsino in his stead. Viola remains stifled here, specifically because of the doubled male role-play, with Viola-as-Cesario-asOrsino. For Rosalind, she is able to be herself despite the role, while Viola seems so

30 defined by her outsides that she almost forgets herself in the process of disguise. In Act III, Rosalind directs Orlando to imagine [her] his love, his mistress (AYLI 3.2.391) and to call her Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me (AYLI 3.2.409), thus invoking the woman behind the disguise. Viola, when given the opportunity to be just as open with Orsino, chooses to skirt the truth, telling Orsino that if she were a woman, she could love him. In other words, Rosalinds disguise seems a natural extension of herself in its recursive pattern of Rosalind-as-Ganymede-as-Rosalind, while Viola is constantly removing herself as woman by playing a particular male, whether Sebastian or Orsino. One reason for the difference between the two womens loss of identity may stem from the fact that Rosalind, even when dressed as Ganymede, is never alone, both in terms of physicality as well as in terms of identity: Celia and Touchstone know Ganymede to be Rosalind in disguise. However, Viola, alone in her knowledge of her true identity (save for a sea captain who never reappears), must bear her Cesario disguise alone. Carroll states that Rosalind disguises herself initially for safety, but she soon realizes the potential of play-acting (134). Thus Rosalind takes her role one step further by creating another character for Orlandos benefit, and as a result of this awareness in the power of her disguise(s), Rosalind benefits in a way that Viola never can. Viola is stymied and constricted by her role, while Rosalind becomes further emboldened and liberated through hers. For example, after Malvolio chases Cesario with a ring from Olivia, Viola realizes the effect her disguise has had on Olivia and in her subsequent speech she reveals just how perplexed she is by her disguise and bemoans the problems it has already caused for Olivia, Orsino, and herself:

31 VIOLA I left no ring with her: what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charmd her! She made good view of me, indeed so much, That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lords ring? Why, he sent her none. I am the man: if it be so, as tis, Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper false In womens waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be. How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly, And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me: What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my masters love: As I am woman (now alas the day!) What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe? O time, thou must untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for me tuntie. (TN 2.2.16-40) In contrasting her dual roles as man and woman, Viola reveals her internal struggle, calling herself a poor monster who is caught between genders and bound by her roles. Her sympathies lie with both parties, as she states that as a man, she longs for Orsino, and as a woman, she sympathizes with Olivia, as she were better love a dream. Unlike Rosalind, who would seek a solution to these problems, Viola leaves it to time, stating that this love triangle is too hard a knot for me tuntie. Carol Hansen describes Viola as a creature caught in two worlds; for her the disguise is not so much a liberating force as it was for Rosalind, but an additional dilemma (177). This dilemma is further demonized

32 by Viola when she declares her disguise a wickedness, which suggests a relinquishing of control to an unknown, supernatural force. Conceding her power causes Viola to relinquish control over her disguise; thus, she loses herself within it. Rosalind never deviates from her disguise and even takes her disguise one step further by creating the role of Rosalind within the role of Ganymede. In undertaking this role she admonishes Orlando for his love-sick antics by telling Orlando she has cured others of this madness of love: ROSALIND He was to imagine me his love, his mistress, and I set him every day to woo me. At which time would Ibeing but a moonish youthgrieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loath him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness, which was to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook merely monastic, And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheeps heart, that there shall not be one spot of love int. (AYLI 3.2.390-406) Rosalind utilizes every stereotype of woman here, telling Orlando that in acting her part, she played shallow, proud, mercurial, and emotional, but she also calls attention to her initial role as a moonish youth. Orlando seems to ignore that Ganymede tells him that in curing this man of his love, he forswore the world and now lives in a monastery. Regardless, this speech plays to Orlandos belief of an idealized Rosalind despite her

33 use of these negative stereotypes, and Rosalind artfully controls this scene despite her various characters. Rosalind and Viola are not just participating in gender-based disguise but rather taking on the role of men by creating these alter-egos in Cesario and Ganymede. In doing so, Viola and Rosalind both reflect their perceptions of manhood and display aspects of their own natures that have previously been hidden and constricted by their socially-constructed femininity. Thus, the women who go through the most physical changes elicit corresponding changes in the men. However, this idea is complicated by Celia, who, after hearing her father banish Rosalind, tells him Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege; / I cannot live without her company (AYLI 1.3.82-83). It is Celias idea to go to the forest of Arden to find Rosalinds father, not Rosalinds idea. She is also first to come up with the idea of disguising herself as they travel. Celia is a woman making decisions, and she does not need a gender-based disguise to take on these empowering characteristics, which Hornby describes as masculine. Yet Celia has little to do with the action of the play, and although she falls in love with Oliver, who one could argue is the most radically transformed man of the play, her initial boldness is overshadowed by the boldness and inquisitive temperament of Rosalind. Another interesting observation about these roles undertaken by Viola and Rosalind is the nature of their romantic relationships before the disguise, those between Viola and Orsino and Rosalind and Orlando. Viola, believing her brother dead and herself alone in Illyria dresses as Cesario almost immediately so she can gain entry to Orsinos court. Orsino has no knowledge of the Viola who preceded Cesario; instead, he

34 comes to tender dearly Cesario, going so far as to threaten murder when it is obvious Olivia has fallen for Cesario: ORSINO But hear me this: Since you to non-regardance cast my faith, And that I partly know the instrument That screws me from my true place in your favour, Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still. But this your minion, whom I know you love, And whom, by heaven, I swear I tender dearly, Him will I tear out of that cruel eye Where he sits crowned in his masters spite. (TN 5.1.11826) Here, Orsino reveals that his thoughts do not rest solely on revenge for Olivias refusal of his love; instead, he publicly reveals his growing feelings for Cesario. Although the Arden editors note that this speech prepares the audience for the transference of his (Orsinos) love from Olivia to Viola as soon as the latters identity is disclosed, it still reveals that Orsino has fallen, against his will, for Cesario (Lothian and Craik 137). In addition, Cesarios betrayal hurts more than Olivias refusal to love, maybe because Olivia is already playing the scripted role of marble-breasted tyrant and cruel mistress. Her role is conventionally scripted while the role of Cesario becomes the rewrite of the script. Thus, the betrayal is not only unexpected, but evermore painful. Orsino first falls in love with the boy in the woman, while Orlandos false love of Rosalind must be disproved by the woman hidden as a boy. When compared with Orlando and Ganymedes relationship, a glaring difference is noted; Orlando had already been introduced to Rosalind before her Ganymede disguise. Later in the play, in his

35 discussion with Duke Senior, Orlando even goes so far as to tell the Duke that Ganymede reminds him of Rosalind: DUKE SENIOR I do remember in this shepherd boy Some lively touches of my daughters favour. ORLANDO My lord, the first time that I ever saw him Methought he was a brother to your daughter. (AYLI 5.4.26-29) This exchange reveals a key difference between the two disguises. Ganymede is superficial and those who knew Rosalind almost recognize her, while Violas identity is completely subsumed by Cesarios. As a result, Orlando is in love with Rosalind and remains in love with Rosalind despite Ganymede, and Orsino has fallen in love with Cesario, unaware of the woman behind the disguise. One man loves the woman, while the other loves the role the woman is playing. But Orlando loves his idealized notion of Rosalind- not Rosalind herself, and until Ganymede teaches him to love the real Rosalind, he is also in love with an image of love: It is true that Rosalind is disguised as a man, and it is also true that it is a convention in Shakespeares plays that no one ever sees through a disguise even when, as here, it consists merely of the clothing of the opposite sex. Yet surely here the convention is being metadramatically mocked. This is clear enough in act 4, scene 1, in which Rosalind, dresses as Ganymede (her male disguise), plays the role of Rosalind to the love-sick Orlando. This is not only multiple-layered role playing within the role; it carries the added, exquisite irony that the innermost role coincides with the outermost reality. Orlando is so idealistically blind that he cannot see the very woman he loves, even though

36 she is standing in front of him, disguised only with male garments, and playing herself. (Hornby 140-41) Interestingly enough, Orlando never expresses any degree of love for Ganymede, although Phoebe does, while Orsino frequently displays affection for Cesario. Orsino is a man of extremes, and it seems that this nature of extremes allows him to fall in love with Cesario in a way that Orlando cannot fall in love with Ganymede. Carroll writes that the women go through the changes but without essentially changing, whereas the men, always and ever themselves, come out the end looking different, altered in shape and point of view by what the women have done in their stead (128). Accordingly, while the women take on disguise they remain essentially unchanged whereas the men, who never change their identity are transformed by their experience. This transformation of identity, at least by Orsino and Orlando focuses on the womens role play and calls into question the aftereffects of gender role-play on the men and the homoerotic implications of their love. The most obvious example of this male metamorphosis is Orsino, who one could argue gains a better sense of self and thus becomes less vain by the end of the play because of his prideful folly. However, I would argue that Olivia too is altered in shape and point of view by her experience in courting a woman; as Sebastian puts it in the closing scene, she has been mistook and would have been contracted to a maid (TN 5.1.257; 259). She is able to laugh this misunderstanding off just as Orsino seems to do, by asking who wants share in this most happy wreck, yet both exit their experience changed: Orsino accepts Olivia as his sister, and they join hands at the end of the play,

37 all forgetting the pain and suffering endured by Orsino as he pined over Olivia and forgetting the not-so-distant mourning of Olivias dead brother and father. These former roles (pining lover, mourning daughter-sister) are discarded by the end of the play just as Viola discards her Cesario disguise, suggesting that in Violas case, this was, indeed, merely role-play. Orsino now knows that Cesario is truly Viola, and one of the first directives he gives Viola is to see her in thy womans weeds: ORSINO Cesario, come For so you shall be while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsinos mistress, and his fancys queen. (TN 5.1.384-87) The pun achieved by Orsinos use of other habits is not lost here: habits, of course, could refer to costume, but additionally could speak to Orsinos need for Viola to now play the female. Only after he has asked her to change her attire from masculine to feminine does he tell her that her master quits you, and from this time, be your masters mistress (TN 5.1.319; 323-4). Again, Trevor Nunns film version of the play complicates this reading, as his additional final scene calls attention to the fact that within Shakespeares play Viola never actually reassumes her female attire. Orgel argues that this complication of costume at the end of Twelfth Night reveals quite a bit about Viola, thus also commenting on her former role as Cesario: whatever Viola says about the erotic realities of her inner life, she is not a woman unless she is dressed as one. Even here, it is a particular costume that matters, her own dress that was left with the sea captain: this is the dress that is Viola. The costume is the real thing: borrowing a dress from Olivia or buying a new one to get married in are not

38 offered by the play as options. Clothes make the woman, clothes make the man: the costume is of the essence. (104) An interesting distinction between the two plays reveals itself here: while Viola ends the play searching for her womans weeds so she can effectively fulfill her role as Orsinos mistress, Rosalind disguises herself as Ganymede again for the epilogue instead of remaining as Rosalind after the wedding ceremony, thus revealing a willingness to flit between her gender-based roles rather easily. William Carroll explains that the metadramatic elements of the play, of actors who play roles within roles, calls attention back to the freedom inherent in a gender-based disguise: The most fundamental transformation, the most important taking on of disguise, occurs among the actors, before the audience sits down. But in As You Like It, Shakespeare is confident enough to disenchant usto undo the one mimetic transformation we never saw begin but placed a complicit belief in. The epilogue begins with Rosalind speaking but ends with the actors words: another case of Twas I. But tis not I. The speakers initial difficulty is to overcome the limitations of disguiseRosalinds last transformation thus occurs before our eyes, though as usual we dont know it has happened until its cessation is asserted. We had forgotten she was not a woman. (135-36) This additional transformation at the end of As You Like It, when contrasted with the lack of any such transformation at the end of Twelfth Night reveals the contrast between Viola and Rosalind even more starkly: Rosalind, with typical adeptness, embraces her disguise in a way that Viola could not. In the Epilogue, Rosalind states, It is not the fashion to see the lady the Epilogue, but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the

39 Prologue (AYLI 1-3), and it is up to us as audience to determine whether it is Rosalind, Rosalind-as-Ganymede, or the actor playing Rosalind and Ganymede who is speaking. Rosalind is a busy actor in her play, yet she is always aware of herself, of the Rosalind beneath the role. And while Viola is ever mindful that she is woman beneath the disguise, she forgets herself in her dual roles of Cesario and Sebastian. Despite this divergence from stereotypical gender role-play, both Twelfth Night and As You Like It make a return to convention, as they each end with marriage or the promise of marriage, and although the men have been revealed as foolish in their approach to love, neither Orlando nor Orsino seems to mind the womens necessary role-playing. Novy claims that women gain their dramatic power because they seem to live so close to the conflict between the desires to keep and to lose the self, between individuality and merging with others (269). Nowhere is this conflict between keeping and losing the self more apparent than in the juxtaposition of Rosalind-as-Ganymede (and Ganymede-asRosalind) and Viola-as-Cesario, and the roles played by each set Rosalind up for continued happiness while Viola has to journey once again to reclaim herself.

40 Chapter 3 YOU ARE NOW OUT OF YOUR TEXT: PERCEPTIONS OF GENDER AND THE REWRITING OF SCRIPT In As Who Liked It? Juliet Dusinberre suggests that Rosalind rewrites her script as the play progresses and, more than any other heroine, Rosalind becomes the author of her own drama who writes a part for herself, which she likes better than those written by men (9). I would argue that Twelfth Nights Viola rewrites her script as well, literally by discarding Orsinos poetical script in lieu of her own in her effort to woo Olivia and figuratively by questioning his theories and beliefs about women. Rosalind and Viola thus edit and embellish the existent scripts, as Dusinberre argues, to rewrite the record of female desire so that women want to read it (16). However, these edits and embellishments are often reliant on Viola and Rosalinds perception and expectation of what those gender-based roles entail, as well as complicated by the perceptions of what the men already believe of women in general and vice versa. Add the women dressing as boys, Ganymedes creation of the faux Rosalind, and the questionable nature of love at first sight, and the rewriting of roles becomes not merely the women writing roles that they prefer for themselves, but rather rewriting out of situational and personal necessity as well. It seems that Viola and Rosalind are able to communicate with the men and make them understand women only because they are dressed as boys, and these non-scripted conversations between men help Orlando and Orsino learn to love and win the hands of Rosalind and Viola respectively. Arguably, Cesario and Ganymede are better men than some of the men of these plays, because the men put the women they love on a pedestal; the convention of love at first sight permits and reinforces such behavior, and such

41 behavior makes the men insincere, as revealed in their language. Cesario and Ganymede then must demonstrate the hollowness of the love discourse and the shallowness of the men's affections to reveal this insincerity and enlighten the men as to the difference between an idealized image and a realistic one. In both plays, it is performance and disguise that demonstrate the fluidity of gender roles, which allows male and female lovers to regard their beloveds as real, not idealized, people. Carol Hansen describes a pattern that emerges when women don male disguise, arguing that the women of the plays appear for a time as equals in a male world where they are allowed to openly initiate the action [where the] woman character has been set free to do what the men were always allowed to do: to act, instead of to react (163; 164). Ultimately, through their gender-based disguises, these conversations engineered by Cesario and Ganymede serve to rewrite their initial roles as Viola and Rosalind over the course of the two plays, despite their return to traditional gender roles at the conclusion of each. In As You Like It, both Orlando and Silvius put women on pedestals, imagining women as goddesses who represent some idealized perfection, just as Orsino exclaims in the first scene of Twelfth Night: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purgd the air of pestilence; That instant was I turnd into a hart, And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, Eer since pursue me (TN 1.1.19-23) Both Twelfth Night and As You Like It invoke this Petrarchan ideal and conceit, specifically through the characters of Orsino and Orlando. Petrarch, who wrote a series of poems to his love Laura, uses the courtly love tradition as a starting point for his

42 description of the courtly lover in love, but then adds a further physicality and spirituality to this endeavor. As Jacob Blevins outlines in his text Catullan consciousness and the early modern lyric in England: from Wyatt to Donne, in Petrarchan poetry, the lover suffers from a whole list of physical ailments and Petrarch conventionalizes the figure of the sleepless lover, the conceits used to praise the beauty of his mistress, [and] the acknowledgement that the lady herself (because she is his inspiration) deserves credit for the poetry he writes (13-14). Orsino and Orlando cling to this Petrarchan notion of the ideal, as evidenced by their reliance on this model for their love and the fact that they subscribe to this approach throughout the plays. Even after he has been rebuffed numerous times by Olivia, Orsino still defaults to this idealized notion of women which he sustains through the end of the play. In the final scenes, he resorts again to this Petrarchan ideal, exclaiming, Here comes the Countess: now heaven walks on earth (TN 5.1.95) as Olivia enters the stage after her marriage to Sebastian. Viola-as-Cesario continues this adoring praise in her pleas on Orsinos behalf to Olivia, replying when Olivia asks how Orsino loves her: With adorations, fertile tears, / With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire (TN 1.5.259-60). Likewise, when Orlando first hangs his verses in the forest in Act 3, scene 2, he declares: O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts Ill character, That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere. Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she! (AYLI 3.2.5-10)

43 In Act III, Celia tells Rosalind that the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster: they are both the confirmer of false reckonings (AYLI 3.4.27-29). Later, Celia reads Orlandos verses that she found on a tree to Rosalind, and like his earlier proclamations of Petrarchan idealism, this idealized Rosalind becomes infallible in Orlandos eyes: CELIA [reads] Therefore heaven Nature charged That one body should be filled With all graces wide-enlarged Nature presently distilled Helens cheek but not her heart, Cleopatras majesty, Atalantas better part, Sad Lucretias modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devised Of many faces, eyes and hearts To have the touches dearest prized. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave. (AYLI 3.2.138-51) Orlandos vision of a chaste, virtuous goddess encroaches on the true nature of the woman Orlando loves, as he relies on an amalgamation of legendary women to describe Rosalind instead of a true and realistic representation. These idealizations, as demonstrated by Orsinos poetical text to Olivia and Orlandos posted verses, affect both mens wooing habits adversely, and as a result, poetic language and letter writing in these two plays reveal the disconnect between written word and passion, as well as the readiness with which a text can be discarded as vacuous rhetoric. In addition to resorting to a Petrarchan abstraction to woo Olivia, Orsino also seems to commodify her love by comparing his love with a variety of words that indicate wealth:

44 DUKE Once more, Cesario, Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty. Tell her my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that fortune hath bestowd upon her, Tell her I hold as giddily as fortune: But tis that miracle and queen of gems That nature pranks her in, attracts my soul. (TN 2.4.80-7) In Shakespeares comedies, the convention of love at first sight reveals a loss of reason and a sudden relinquishing of the senses. Additionally, when Shakespeares characters fall in love at first sight, they experience difficulty in understanding how the objects of their affection are real people who are more than mere images of perfection. Many characters share this experience of love at first sight, and they are not always men, but the object of worship is almost always female, even when it is a female dressed as a male. There stand three exceptions, however. Rosalind and Viola are also guilty of this experience of love at first sight, as within three days of being in Orsinos court Viola whispers in an aside that shell do her best to woo Olivia for Orsino, yet, a barful strife! / Whoeer I woo, myself would be his wife (TN 1.4.41-2). Likewise, when Rosalind first lays eyes upon Orlando, she calls him over to encourage him before his wrestling match. After he wins, she offers him a chain from around her neck, prompting Celia to later ask: Is it possible on such a / Sudden you should fall into so strong a liking with old / Sir Rowlands youngest son? (AYLI 1.3.26-7). Thus the men can also be objectified in these plays just as the women are. The same is true with Alienas love for Oliver, as Ganymede tells Orlando:

45 For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent or else be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of love and they will together. (AYLI 5.2.31-39)

The men, however, epitomize this worshipful approach to women and love seems further impacted by the importance of love at first sight in these two plays. Arguably, Orlando, Orsino, Silvius, Oliver, Olivia, and Phoebe all are in love with women (or women dressed as boys) based on their appearances. In an aside after her first meeting with Cesario, Olivia reveals that she fear(s) to find/ Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind; thus, her eyes have lead her to love Cesario (TN 1.5.312-13). Likewise in As You Like It, after Rosalind-as-Ganymede chides Phoebe for not embracing Silvius love, Phoebe reveals that not only has she fallen in love with Ganymedes words, but also his appearance. As soon as the others take their leave, Phoebe tells Silvius Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight? (AYLI 3.5.82), and, although her description of Ganymede begins with a discussion of how he talks well, Phoebe soon launches into a description of this pretty youth, focusing on his appearance: PHOEBE The best thing in him Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue Did make offence, his eye did heal it up. He is not very tall, yet for his years hes tall; His leg is but so-so, and yet tis well. There was a pretty redness in his lip, A little riper and more lusty red

46 Than that mixed in his cheek. Twas just the difference Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. (AYLI 3.5.116-24) This description by Phoebe serves to remind us as audience of Viola and Rosalinds beauty despite their disguises, as both are referred to as fair youths, and their beauty through the disguise leads to more superficial love entanglements with Olivia and Phoebe. Orsino, too, comments on Cesarios looks, as he sends her to swear his love to Olivia a mere three days after Viola has entered his court: DUKE Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years, That say thou art a man; Dianas lip Is not more smooth and rubious: thy small pipe Is as the maidens organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a womans part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. (TN 1.5.29-36) While Orsino seems to avoid the trappings of love at first sight, he very quickly takes note of Cesarios feminine looks, if only to use them initially to his own advantage. This notion of love at first sight also aligns in these plays with the notion of absence, especially as it pertains to the men, and it is remarkable how little contact Orlando and Orsino have with the objects of their publicly-protested affection. Orsino has been consistently denied entry to Olivias court and thus is left with only his remembrance of her beauty, and Orlando has only seen and spoken with Rosalind once before she enters the Forest of Arden. Even the women who fall in love with the crossdressed Viola and Rosalind find their beloveds most compelling when they are absent in

47 their duty and affections. Olivia and Phoebe are just as culpable and foolish as the men, as evidenced by Phoebe in her exclamation of Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight? (AYLI 3.5.83), and by Olivia, who only warms to Cesario after he leaves the substance of his text. Phoebe falls in love with Ganymede after Ganymede has told her he likes her not (AYLI 3.5.74), yet both Phoebe and Olivia were curious about these fair youths from first glance. Likewise, Oliver has only to meet Aliena once before he tells his brother that he loves her, prompting Orlando to ask him ironically, if it is possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? That but seeing, you should love her? (AYLI 5.2.1-2). These instances justify the argument that the men and women of these plays are in love with appearance over substance and focuses on the realization that the lovers idealization depends upon the beloveds initial appearance and continued absence. Rewriting the script, then takes a self-serving turn, as the disguises allow Viola and Rosalind access to these men with whom they have fallen in love and the ability to counter Orsino and Orlandos perceptions of women in general. Conversely, this re-write also serves to allow a metamorphosis in Orsino too, as he moves from the conceited wooer who mopes around after Olivia to the affectionate lover who urges Viola to be his fancys queen (TN 5.1.387). Regardless of this resulting change, however, Orsino and Orlando prove insincere in their wooing and in love in general because they hide behind a text, behind the art of language and poetry. Through Twelfth Night and As You Like It, Shakespeare reveals a basic courtship paradox: the more the men try to express themselves the falser they become and the less successful their appeal, and the more they

48 (and Viola) try to hide their emotions (even to the extent of taking on another identity), the more true feelings are revealed. In Twelfth Night, Orsino uses high words to express how love has consumed him, but his proclamations of love fail miserably. His addresses fail because his love is feigned, as he really doesnt know Olivia; instead, he seems to enjoy his role of jilted lover because it provides him a purpose outside of his superficial and shallow role as Duke. Orsino, pining away for love in his castle, does so from afar via intermediaries; thus, he is twice removed (by distance and messenger) from any sentiment he expresses to Olivia in his messages. Violas true expressions of love, however, do result from Orsinos choice to send Cesario as his messenger to Olivia, telling her that she must not leave until Olivia hears his message. After all, Orsino sent Cesario to Olivia purposefully, knowing that if anyone had the means to speak with Olivia, Cesario did. Cesarios looks, described by Orsino as semblative of a womans part, convince him that the disguised Violas constellation is right apt / For this affair (TN 1.4.33-35). It is almost as if Orsino subconsciously understands that an utterance of love is best heard from a woman in love, one face-to-face with the object of affection. These subconscious understandings are displayed through Olivia and Phoebe as well, as both respond not only to Cesario and Ganymedes looks respectively, but also respond to their words and manners of speaking. Orsino too responds to Cesario in much the same way, which is ironic considering the pedestal on which he has placed Olivia. In order to provide his message of love to Olivia, however, Orsino had to divulge his hearts

49 contents to Cesario, something which he is incapable of doing for Olivia without resorting to the superficiality of poetry and idealization: DUKE Thou knowst no less but all: I have unclaspd To thee the book even of my secret soul. Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her, Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow Till thou have audience. VIOLA Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then? DUKE O then unfold the passion of my love, Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith; It shall become thee well to act my woes: She will attend it better in thy youth, Than in a nuncios of more grave aspect. (TN 1.4.13-18; 23-28) Within these confines of poetic convention, Orsino ironically tells Cesario to act his woes, which adds an additional layer of metatheatricality to Violas role, as she must now play Orsino as she plays Cesario. Interestingly enough, Orsino seems to have no trouble revealing the emotion of love to Cesario while simultaneously resorting to convention when sending messages to Olivia. In Androgyny in Shakespeares Disguise, Robert Kimbrough argues that the effects of Viola and Rosalinds disguises are similar, in that men can be relaxedly, if only superficially, confessional with others of the same sexthe sort of just between us collusion that men easily fall into (29). Thus the juxtaposition that occurs when Orsino unclasps all to Cesario, yet resorts to a text that is not only emotionally bereft, but

50 physically absent as well when trying to woo Olivia reveals this schism between honest thought and poetic artificiality. This artificiality is most evident through Cesarios repeated attempts to relay Orsinos text to Olivia: VIOLA Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beautyI pray you tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I would be loath to cast away my speech: for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message. (TN 1.5.171-75; 190-92) Viola refers to this speech in [Olivias] praise as excellently well penned, which seems to turn Orsinos exclamations of love into something one-dimensional, into words on a page as opposed to honest emotion. As a result, the artificiality of Orsinos message to Olivia serves as a reflection of his self-centeredness instead of as a true message of love, denying Olivia an identity beyond his image of her perfection. Orsino is not alone in this seeming inability to be honest with women. Other men in the play, from Orsino, to Sir Andrew and Sir Toby, seem comically inept at honest verbal communication, and without Cesarios interventions and deviations from the standard text, love would have continued to be a text far removed from any true expression of love. Orsinos high words reveal his insincerity, especially when his addresses are juxtaposed with the more heartfelt and emotional words Cesario rewrites in her willow cabin speech. When Cesario first entered, Olivia was uninterested; she had received Orsinos empty messages before. It was only when Cesario left the text of her message from Orsino that Olivia became intrigued. Viola uses this shift in reaction to her

51 advantage, first by asking Olivia to see her face beneath the veil, and then by launching into an explanation of what she would do if she were Orsino: Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of condemned love, And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Hallow your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out Olivia! O, you should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me. (TN 1.5.273-79) As audience, we know that Viola is merely exposing her love for Orsino through her conversation with Olivia, but Olivia cannot help but respond to the fair youth in front of her who so vehemently berates her for withholding her love, which, unlike Orsinos text, is not poetical, but genuine in its emotion. This honesty is why Cesarios rewrite of the text makes such a profound impact on Olivia. Coming from Orsino, expressions of love seem overblown and feigned. Coming from Cesario, divinity. Thus by juxtaposing his high words with the more heartfelt and emotional words Cesario utilizes in her willow cabin speech, Orsinos insincerity is emphasized. Why, then, can Orsino not speak equally sincerely in front of Olivia? Is it the custom of the time that dictates precedent, or does Orsino simply hide behind the text because Olivia is only a social match, not a romantic one? I would argue that the shallowness of his feelings for Olivia contributes to Orsinos inability to be authentic in his wooing, while his subliminal feelings for Viola/Cesario reveal a true depth to his love, a depth not exhibited through his messages and proclamations about Olivia. In Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage, Michael Shapiro notes that the scenes between Cesario

52 and Orsino prepare the spectator for the violence of Orsinos outburst when he hears that Cesario has married Olivia (161). Shapiro adds: The strength of Orsinos outrage indicates a wound deeper than his alleged affection for Olivia. When she enters, he observes her presence (instead of greeting her) in a single line of Petrarchan clich, Here comes the Countess, now heaven walks on earth (V.i.97)while Olivia remains the marble-breasted tyrant she has always been in his Petrarchist fantasy, Cesario, whom he tendered dearly, has shocked him with an act of betrayal [and] Orsinos agonized sense of betrayal arises more from the loss of Cesario than from the loss of Olivia, a reaction that permits the audience to accept his love for Viola when her true sex is revealed. (Gender 161-63) Likewise in As You Like It, Orlandos expressions of love, epitomized by his hanging of verses, seem hollow, more an homage to what love should look like rather than actually true in its emotion. Juliet Dusinberre argues that Orlandos Petrarchan verses are derided (though no doubt relished as well) by Rosalind for being too long, like a bad sermon, just as (in the guise of Ganymede) she scoffs at the claims of the great romantic lovers of classical mythology to die for love (Introduction 8). As she sets out to cure Orlando of his love for Rosalind by becoming his faux Rosalind, Ganymede mocks this worshipping kind of love exhibited by Orlando, telling him facetiously that if he were a true lover, he would be sighing every minute and groaning every hour (AYLI 3.2.295). Thus Ganymede seeks to rewrite Orlandos method of wooing by speaking to him as a saucy lackey and under that habit play the knave with him (AYLI 3.2.287-88). Her rewrite here, in which she inserts herself in Orlandos life without revealing herself as Rosalind offers her insight into Orlando she would not have otherwise. Ganymede as a

53 character, then, as an addition to the script, is able to counter this preconceived notion of women and of love: When Rosalind-as-Ganymede insists that Orlandos Rosalind will have her own wit, her own will and her own way, implicit in the portrayal is Rosalinds insistence that Orlando recognize the discrepancy between his idealized version and the real Rosalind [and] it is because she is disguised as Ganymede that she can be so free in portraying a Rosalind who is a flesh and blood woman instead of a Petrarchan abstraction. (Hayles 65) Rosalinds rewriting of the text, when compared with Violas, is much more direct. Jean Howard describes Rosalind as saucy, imperious, and fickle, in arguing that Rosalind plays out masculine constructions of femininity, in the process showing Orlando their limitations (37). Viola lacks this opportunity, as she can only describe her sisters faithfulness. Rosalind gets to live her example, and because of this difference, I would argue that Orlando learns more about women than does Orsino. By disguising their gender, the women are able to step in to remedy the mens ineffective wooing efforts, but these conversations between men, a result of the revised script created by their disguise, allow the women to be seen as complex humans, with many possible identities, not simply as empty vessels. Cesario argues with Orsino about his representation of women, while Ganymede uses the stereotypical fickleness and moodiness she mockingly attributes to women in Act III to encourage Orlando toward a new understanding of women. Hornby argues that Rosalind is realistic while Orlando is blind, and adds that Orlando sees only an idealized image of [his] beloved (142). He further argues that romantic love cannot be a permanent stateit must be transmuted

54 into something more down to earthhusbands and wives must accept each other as real, flawed human beings (142). This new understanding of Rosalind occurs only because of the layered role of Ganymede-as-Rosalind. In front of Orsino, Viola-as-Cesario defends women, yet Orsino, caught up in his own unrequited love, is bullish in his belief that men have a superior capacity for love over women. He insists: There is no womans sides Can bide the beating of so strong a passion As love doth give my heart; no womans heart So big, to hold so much: they lack retention. Alas, their love may be calld appetite, No motion of the liver, but the palate, That suffers surfeit, cloyment, and revolt; But mine is all as hungry as the sea, And can digest as much. Make no compare Between that love a woman can bear me And that I owe Olivia. (TN 2.4.94-104) Viola responds by telling Orsino that women are as true of heart as we: We men may say more, swear more, but indeed Our shows are more than will: for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. (TN 2.4.107; 11719) This outburst by Viola can be viewed in two distinct ways: first, as a connection to the superficial love she sees Orsino display for Olivia, and second, as comparison with her real love for Orsino with Olivias lack of love for him. Additionally, Viola also comments on the discrepancy between word and action by calling attention to men like Orsino who say and swear more, but prove little in love. Rosalinds situation is more complicated, because she has muddied the waters with her wish for Orlando to see Ganymede as his Rosalind. Thus she doesnt stand up

55 for women as well as Viola does through her guise. However, differentiation frees Rosalind to be herself within her disguise, while Viola almost loses herself within hers, save for these instances where she uses her own emotions and experiences to right Orsinos understanding of women in general. Rosalinds cause concentrates on Orlandos own wooing folly and the stereotypical view of women she assumes he holds; thus Rosalinds ends are deliberate while Violas seem more accidental. Rosalind-asGanymede-as Orlandos Rosalind not only rewrites dialogue, but plots her way out of the romantic knot shes created, while Viola-as-Cesario inspires only an involuntary change in Olivia and Orsino. In addition, Viola must depend on the happy reappearance of Sebastian to ensure her future happiness. Unlike Viola, Rosalind orchestrates her own happiness as well as others, and she directs her plot so that all Jacks have their Jills at the end of the play. Alison Findlay argues that while Rosalind and Viola enjoy the independence granted through their disguises, each is obligated to re-create herself in fictional form in order to be both the subject and object of desire (107). Ganymede becomes the fictional Rosalind for Orlando while Viola, as Findlay notes, creates another persona who is a return to her female identity: VIOLA My father had a daughter loved a man As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman I should your lordship. ORSINO And whats her history? VIOLA A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm ith bud, Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,

56 And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like patience on a monument Smiling at grief. (TN 2.4.108-16) Here, Viola assumes a bold yet guarded approach to her relationship with Orsino, keeping her identity a secret, yet revealing all. Unlike Rosalind, who becomes Orlandos Rosalind and dictates the course of events, Viola is passive, pining in thought; patient, yet smiling at grief, unable to construct a second role to play, as Rosalind does within Ganymede playing Rosalind. Thus Violas Cesario seems noticeably weaker than Rosalinds Ganymede, as Viola leaves events to time, while Rosalind, emboldened by her disguise and the power inherent within it, dictates the course of action, which inevitably, like most of Shakespeares comedies, leads to marriage. Metadrama is defined as a play which somehow draws attention to the acts of playing, acting, and spectating, and As You Like It and Twelfth Night comment on this self-reflexive nature of theater as Rosalind and Viola perform gender in the guises of Ganymede and Cesario. In Shakespeares Female Characters as Actors and Audience, Marianne Novy argues, At the center of Shakespeares comediesthe womens acting has been deed as well as pretense; their fictions have helped express some kind of truth (256). Hornby would argue that this truth reveals itself in these plays through the roles undertaken by Viola and Rosalind, which are closer to the characters true self than his everyday, real personality, although he also argues that audiences accepted these powerful women because their actions are an agreed upon fiction (67). Powerful women without gender-based disguise are a threat, yet Shakespeare carefully constructs the roles of Rosalind and Viola to reveal the strength inherent within, before Ganymede

57 and Cesario. The womens power, evidenced by Viola and Rosalinds rewrites to the existent script, showcases what Dusinberre believes as the need for the women to rewrite the record of female desire so that women want to read it (16). In contrast to Viola, however, who still depends on a male to right the action of the play, Rosalind not only rewrites dialogue but also plots her way out of the romantic knot in which she is entangled. The deus ex machina is unnecessary in As You Like It, despite the appearance of the god Hyman, as Rosalind has already set up her return to Orlando and Phoebes return to Silvius in the absence of Ganymede. Regardless of this difference, however, both women exit the play changed, liberated by their efforts and happy because of the outcome of their charade. While marriage was never a governing intent of either womans disguise, it is a welcome byproduct, one that becomes attainable only after those true feelings of love are revealed through the conversations between men. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Helena tells Demetrius: We cannot fight for love, as men may do; we should be wood and were not made to woo (Lothian and Craik xciii). As Cesario and Ganymede, Viola and Rosalind are able to woo effectively and re-write their respective scripts to allow room for women who fight for love as well, thus allowing women to dictate their lives as they like it and how they will.

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59 ---. Women and Boys Playing Shakespeare. A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Dympna Callaghan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. 251-262. Findlay, Alison. Chapter 3. I please my self: Female Self-Fashioning. A Feminist Perspective on Renaissance Drama. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1999. 87126. Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York: Routledge, 1992. Gay, Penny. As She Likes It: Shakespeares Unruly Women. London: Routledge, 1994. Greenblatt, Stephen. General Introduction The Norton Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997. 2-27; 41-65. Hansen, Carol. Woman as Actor Woman as Individual in English Renaissance Drama: A Defiance of the Masculine Code. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1993. 163-183. Hayles, Nancy K. Sexual Disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespeare Studies and Production. 32. (1979): 63-72. Hornby, Richard. Drama, Metadrama, and Perception. Lewisburg: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1986. Howard, Jean E. Chapter 2. Cross-Dressing, The Theater, and Gender Struggle. Crossing the Stage: Controversies on Cross-Dressing. Ed. Lesley Ferris. London: Routledge, 1993. 20-46.

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