Female Cross-dressing on the Paris Stage, 1673-1715

TitleFemale Cross-dressing on the Paris Stage, 1673-1715
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication1999
AuthorsClarke, Jan
JournalForum for Modern Language Studies
Volume35
Issue3
Pagination238-250
Abstract

Because Georges Forestier's monumental study of identity and disguise in the French theatre of the 16th and 17th centuries stops at 1680, we might be tempted to think that the phenomenon becomes less significant from that time on. In fact, this is far from being the case, and disguise features in both French and Italian comedies performed in France up to and beyond the end of the reign of Louis XIV. Female to male cross-dressing can serve a variety of dramatic purposes, from the satiric to the purely ludic. This article will concentrate on plays in which disguise is used to create sexual innuendo. Contemporaries referred to such suggestiveness as "equivoque", and it would seem to have been one of the principal motivations for the inclusion of cross-dressing.

URLhttps://academic.oup.com/fmls/article-abstract/XXXV/3/238/745980
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