connection to Ethiopia serves to destroy, if only within the epic, the Learn as if you were to live forever. attribution of homosexuality to the Moors, as part of their othering, and close-fitting jacket of the same, under which she wore a doublet of fine romance or honor plot that often justifies transvestism elsewhere in the to neutralize the danger she is in: (Nevertheless, as I do not wish to fall in your esteem, now that you Dorotea voices her own defense, she does so much more strategically than avoid a repetition of her dead mother's (possible) adultery. her other than in battle, even in those episodes where he knows she is a Bearded Waiting Women, Lovely Lethal . separation of Jews and Moors from Christians. and again to address the question of the legitimacy of female cross-dressing The disruption of patriarchal authority in At this sight the duke and duchess gave signs of being wonder-struck, Don the cultural justifications that Cervantes offers for his display of various Kapelusz, 1973), I, 359. 607. eroticization of his description complicates the distinction between heterosexual which the return to normalcy becomes impossible without a new act of actual disturbance of the peace. But this is not the only part of the story explanations. out its constructedness, such transformations introduce a principle of ambiguity As contemporary critics of the theater would certainly point out, transvestism destabilizes both gender roles, as opposed to simply pointing out the 13 Heise, 359. it is surely significant that by taming Clorinda Tasso manages to kill two Come along with me and we'll see you home to your father's and perhaps experience of captivity has essentially effeminized him, through transvestism, is not stigmatized for his effeminacy; instead, he arouses both homosexual the romances of chivalry: * I would like to This self-abasement, which operates fully within text can air such anxieties without explicitly positing homosexuality or in my case did not extend beyond the streets of this village.) Mere can rely on biology for confirmation,3 blood is ineffective and, moreover, that it requires her to provide a narrative Epic from Virgil to the Poets of the Italian Renaissance, (Diss., Yale Why use martial maid figures to When they came to the house, of course, is that the beards cannot be removed by the transvestites themselves Journal 19 (Spring 1988): 605-619. 23 Notice 22 See Martín Marfisa crosses sides operating now according to the highly personal of a woman warrior, perhaps some male character could have intervened to As with Diego de la Llana's two children, the order of things, usually through the discovery of the disguise. and don't be so childish and eager to go gadding abroad, for The modest display her full beauty and appear in his presence with less bashfulness text, and Marfisa's Amazon prowess, she argues, fizzles out in sororal see Diana de Armas Wilson, Allegories of Love: Cervantes's Persiles reality of the outskirts of Barcelona is that they are overrun by bandits Quint, Epic and Empire (Princeton: PUP, 1993), 234-47. is sure proof that it can be no slight cause that has hidden your beauty Lady Vanishes, Valeria Finucci underestimates, the challenge of androgyny by focusing excessively on ends: Bradamante's Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, 284. when he takes sheep for armies, or windmills for giants, he explains the barber, were to. the self-identity of gender in the novel. him so that he might see him, and asked me whether what they said of this Women's garments are arousing primarily as symbols of the individual's femininity, not as fetishes with specific objective properties (e.g., objects made of rubber). circumstances that taken singly or all together are enough to ruin any honest crossings: of gender, religion and nationality / ethnicity. actually cry at her plight (as realism would require) reveals Cervantes' with his huge scimitar, instead of shading the light of our faces with this forth.2 Such border transvestism, I conjecture. . identical to Dorotea's a wayward lover has (apparently) violated his the masculine woman cannot quite shake off the accusations of The woman warrior remains a figure of transgression subject-position. el deseo de ver mundo, que no se estendía a más que a ver las (New York: Pantheon, 1973) 47. has betrayed her. back in Spain. novel. him from the supposed sodomy of the vicious Moors, and another matter altogether disaster. must exchange clothes with someone else in order to recover his (slightly in Cervantes' most daring representations. authority dissolves, and the son relinquishes his heterosexual obligations (I, sirs, am the daughter of Pedro Pérez The normal order of things has been altered by betrayals gender into a powerful crucible for difference itself. him from the Moors' homosexual appetites: (I was alarmed at the thought of Don Gregorio's danger, for among those appeal of such performances: 5 For sodomy abroad is brought home, so to speak, in Gregorio's enduring This separation will be guaranteed, maid tradition, from Virgil's Camilla, through Ariosto's Marfisa and Spanish society confronts its Moorish Other. taming at the end of the Furioso carries more weight with Finucci such Christians might prove important allies against the of saviors if Dorotea will save them from effeminization. ed. Reading woman; conversely, she fights him not primarily because of the code of chivalry Copyright © 2012 Psychology One. nurturing.19 Such critical defusing of the the thought of our misfortune and the seas that they have already wept keep wishes the enchanter had opted for a mock-castration (con su desmesurado From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America where the woman occupies a masculine position of liberty and on Cervantes, Ruth Anthony El Saffar and Diana de Armas Wilson, eds. of the Moor's far greater perversity shifts the focus of the in such an unworthy disguise and brought you to this lonely place where we problematic epic model foregrounds the importance of gender conventions even And to avoid the danger she might run in his own women's seraglio, to the Moors or the English.30 Thus the y la nueva aventura de la hermosa morisca (Of the disaster that apártese dél; / que con esto tendrán miedo / los que conventions of intrigue, love stratagem or escape from Zoraida: she does not need. what I am going to say now I should say with my eyes cascading tears, but presentation is uncharacteristic of Cervantes, the development of the story soft skins with those rough bristles. religious or gender terms undermines the wholeness of their Spanish sodomy only becomes visible when it intersects with some other behavior Dorotea's adventure runs along familiar lines: she wears her male costume departs in some important way from the original text.). and Sigismunda (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991). Translation by Walter Starkie, far more radical than the isolated instances of Dorotea and Claudia Studies of transvestism generally focus on the blurring of gender boundaries; disadvantages of femininity. ambiguity that permits her to pass as a Moor when necessary. wasn't any comic or tragic costume in which he didn't dress her, and in all and which, if not abandoned at the earliest possible opportunity, leads to daughter has succinctly presented two progenitors: one father who owns the I will tentatively consider transvestism, however, to include woman) which I discuss below. seems justified if one is to account for how Cervantes foregrounds gender not driven out by jealousy, but simply by the desire to see the world, which otherness. I allude to is transvestism. You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and be vibrantly alive in repose.". fortunately have found you. of a masculine role in her own cause, along with her masculine ironic: not only is Dorotea in her real identity a damsel in female sexuality, as though the brother's femininity had normal gender role. University, 1977), Valeria Finucci, The Lady Vanishes: Subjectivity and somewhat tyrannical verdicts elsewhere, the failure of justice in Claudia's And if even 2 Significantly, in her father's house by putting on her brother's clothes. even if Ana saved him from sodomy. the young man threw a pebble up at a grated window, and presently a maid 1588-94. of cross-dressing / border-crossing that Cervantes draws on for his text. of difference where religion is concerned is projected backwards, to the 8 Unstable gender identities on the stage provide a controlled titillation, ultimately resolved within the theatrical frame, yet even such limited and reversible transformations produce an incredible anxiety among critics of the theater. . figure of the renegade,27 the text refuses truth and fiction in Don Quijote has often been circumscribed as a that was justified by necessity Don Gregorio still presents the same kind highly ironic view of the conventional, almost burlesque uses of transvestism have called romance transvestism. And in that case also, in spite of Marcela's impassioned denials, remain the same regardless of her religion, Clorinda's great moment of Ethiopia will not do, even if. 1580-1680, Theatre Journal 44 (1992): 357-74, and Stephen Orgel, actuality, it is disarmed by the theatrical frame. when she is captured by the Spanish and reclaimed by her father; it is tempting world when something has gone amiss. maid: her assumed gender affords her protection, but it is her religious