A Note on Gender, Religion, and Politics in Twelfth Night
One last Twelfth Night post before the anniversary of its first 1602 public performance on February 2: In Shakespeare’s time, a young male actor would have played the female Viola, later disguised as male Cesario: Much analysis of the play deals with gender, disguises, social constructs. Some of it considers Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s monarch, in a role usually reserved for men. The fifth pageant for her coronation portrayed Deborah, a prophetess of Hebrew scriptures who led Israel as judge [1], contrary to Christian assumptions that kept women from female authority roles. Some scholars and historians note that Elizabeth had a reputation for swearing, not so much sexual profanity as religious, like Hamlet’s “swounds” (by Christ’s wounds) or “sblood” (by God’s blood). Elizabeth’s favorite was “by God’s death,” which listeners assumed was for shock value, by a woman in a man’s world, striving to maintain attention and control [2] Like Portia disguised as Balthazar in the courtroom sce...