Feminizing the enemy : Imperial Spain, transvestite drama, and the crisis of masculinity / Sidney Donnell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Donnell, Sidney, 1963-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--Spain--History--16th century.

Theater.

Theater--Spain--History--17th century.

Female impersonators.

History.

Spain.

Spanish drama--16th century--History and criticism.

Spanish drama.

Spanish drama--17th century--History and criticism.

Female impersonators--Spain--History--16th century.

Female impersonators--Spain--History--17th century.

Physical Description:

312 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lewisburg [Pa.] : Bucknell University Press ; London ; Cranbury, NJ : Associated University Presses, [2003]

Contents:

Transvestite Drama of the Early Modern Period 23

Gender Parody and the Feminization of the Other 26

Theoretical Approximations to the Study of Cross-Dressing and Theater 28

Gender, Genre, and the Subversion of Closure 31

Willkomen, Bienvenue, Welcome 37

Part I. The Sixteenth-Century Stage and the Crisis of Masculinity

1. Drag Performance and Early Habsburg Spain 41

Spain's Feminized Self-Image in the Sixteenth Century 45

A Historical Overview of the Early Habsburgs 50

Cross-Dressing and the Origins of Spain's National Theater 52

The Way We Were: Drag and the Acting Profession 56

"Un-Masculine Activities" and Spain's Entertainment Industry 65

2. "Un interprete es menester para entendello": Lope de Rueda's Comedia Medora and the Performance of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity 73

Reading for Drag Performance in the Renaissance 77

A Reading of Lope de Rueda's Comedia Medora 84

3. "The World Is Not Enough": Homosociality and Madness in Morales's Comedia de los amores y locuras del conde loco 100

Historical Background of the Manuscript 105

Gender Politics and Staging El conde loco 110

The Key to Madness 114

Masculinity, the Phallus, and Homosocial Bonds 120

The Disrobing of a Count 123

The Count's Reconfiguration 130

Part II. The Seventeenth-Century Stage and the Crisis of Masculinity

4. Gender Parody and Late Habsburg Spain 143

A Historical Overview of the Late Habsburgs 146

Spain's Feminized Self-Image in the Seventeenth Century 152

5. "In His Majesty's Secret Service": Menservants in Drag, the Traffic in Women, and Lope de Vega's El paraiso de Laura y florestas del amor 161

Clothes Make the Man 164

Cross-Gender and Cross-Class Dynamics 170

The Green World 173

L'Aura or Laura? 175

Closure in the Wake of the "Disorderly" Woman 182

6. Achilles as Lady-in-Waiting: Transgender and Same-Sex Desire in Monroy y Silva's El caballero dama 185

Beauty is the Beast: "Aurora" as Androgynous Enigma 187

Between Women: The Limits of Same-Sex Desire I 194

Between Men: The Limits of Same-Sex Desire II 204

Cross-Dressing and Class: The Limits of Same-Sex Desire III 213

Closure and Essential Masculinity 220

7. Contrasting Masculinities: Mars and Adonis in a Modern-Day Performance of Calderon de la Barca's La purpura de la rosa 233

The Disruption of Body and Gender 238

The Battle of the Genders 240

Breastplates Are a Drag: The War God's Tortoise Shell of Masculinity 249

Love Is a Boar 255

To Be Pricked, or Not to Be Pricked?: Adonis, Penetration, and Closure 262.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-300) and index.

ISBN:

0838755135

OCLC:

51223663