Orlando & Ganymedes / Orsino & Cesario
Rosalind & Phoebe / Viola & Olivia
When
looking at the similarities between Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and As
You Like It, the most obvious connections lie in the
manner in which the two main female roles both disguise themselves as men
within the plays. But with a deeper look into this phenomenon one can begin to
see that it is just one more way in which Shakespeare seems to hint at the
acceptance of homoeroticism.
Homoeroticism or elements of same-sex love within the play
As You Like It arises from Rosalind’s
cross-dressing. Everybody, male and female, seems to love Ganymede, the
beautiful boy who looks like a woman because he is really Rosalind in disguise.
The name Rosalind chooses for her alter ego, Ganymede, traditionally belonged
to a beautiful boy who was carried off by Zeus, and the name carries strong
homosexual connotations.
Even though Orlando loves Rosalind, he also
seems to enjoy the idea of acting out his romance with the beautiful, young boy
Ganymede, almost as if a boy who looks like the woman he loves is even more
appealing than the woman herself.
Phoebe, too, is more attracted to the feminine Ganymede than
to the real male, Silvius, who is in love with her.
(www.sparknotes.com)
In Twelfth Night is Viola the one who carries out the
homoeroticism, in the same way than Phoebe, Olivia falls in love with Viola, and
Orsino (like Orlando) at
the end of the play, when he knows that Cesareo is a
woman, he doesn’t show any urgency for her to dress like a woman, he
seems also to enjoy the situation with Cesareo.
Homoeroticism between women an important issue, Olivia and
Phoebe are in love with women in disguise although they are unaware of that
fact, only the audience can see it.
“Viola's
successful wooing of Olivia allows us a glimpse of tentative
"lesbian" poetics as one female character imagines and articulates
the words that will seduce another and inspire her to erotic action.”
("Glimpsing a Lesbian
Poetics in Twelfth Night", journal article by Jami
Ake muse.jhu.edu/journals/studies_in_english_literature/v043/43.2ake.html)
Academic year 2006/2007
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Latorre Arnedo, Isabel
usuario@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press