by Dorothy Palmer
As a closeted and unduly pretentious 16-year-old, my life was transformed when my grandparents took
me to see William Shakespeare’s As You Like It performed by the American Players Theatre. We trekked through the woods smothering sunscreen and choking on bug spray that cool summer evening to the Hill Theatre. The play started as the sun took her exit, illuminating the stage for the first two acts, and then the stage lights took over the night shift.
I was enthralled by the delivery, the atmosphere, the costumes, and most importantly, Melisa Pereyra’s stellar performance as Rosalind. In school, I wrote a sub-par essay about it and received a well-earned B. Five years later, I decided to try again to research and write about the queer identity I recognized in the play. This time with the aid of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s extensive Special Collections Archive. As I dug for information, I found out I was not the only one to love Rosalind as a queer icon, but that she also holds a long-standing role within English drag history.
Inventing Rosalind
The English name and popularization of “Rosalind” is attributed to Edmund Spencer’s influential pastoral work, The Shepherd's Calendar published in 1579. Here she appears as a love interest, but her identity is notably shrouded in secrecy, leading scholars to speculate who Spenser intended her character to represent. Her next notable appearance in English literature was Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde, or Euphues Golden Legacie in 1592. William Shakespeare adapted Lodge’s plot into As You Like It sometime in the last few years of the 16th century, and it was published in the first folio (1623).
The details of the performance history for AYL are sparse. It seems to have disappeared for much of the 17th century. Because of this, the casting remains a mystery as to who played Rosalind before Charles II’s decree that mandated that female roles be played by women. Subsequently, a layer of this transformative play was lost (but certainly not forgotten by yours truly). No longer was a man acting as a woman, pretending to be a man, while seducing another man while pretending to be a woman. Instead, a woman played her sex to pretend to be a man and acted as a woman. AYL returned in 1723 to become a specialty for the theatre on Drury Lane. In the 41 seasons spanning from 1776 to 1817, only three neglected to include a run of the play in question. For this play to have such a long and diligent run, it must have been incredibly popular.
Drag on Drury Lane
I’ve never had much of a mind for geography, so I looked at some maps to support a hunch I couldn’t quite visualize on my own. As it turns out, the theatre on Drury Lane’s most popular production (that happened to feature explicit homoerotic, homoromantic, and cross-gendered themes) also happened to be near the evolving hub of London’s queer community. (Right: Drury Lane design and schematics, B. Wyatt, architect. From Britton's Illustrations.) Records of criminal charges, medical reports, and directors' notes quantify the existence of this community, specifically in the form of Molly Houses prevalent in Covent Garden (Drury Lane’s neighborhood). These Molly Houses were secret gathering places for gay men to
crossdress and meet each other. By 1870, the Oxford English Dictionary marked the first written usage of ‘drag’ to mean “Feminine attire worn by a man” in a paper detailing such parties in the same neighborhood. In order for the word to be legible to their audience at large, it must have been spoken and understood for some years before. All this history occurred within the same area of west London. Therefore, I can’t overlook the popularity of AYL occurring in the same place that hosted an evolution of English drag culture.
I easily imagine how Rosalind resonated with this audience of what we would now understand as generally queer and gender non-conforming, especially in a space for those raised primarily as men. Rosalind’s character not only cross-dresses but presents a farcical version of a woman. Celia finds it so offensive a portrayal she accuses Rosalind of “misus[ing] our sex”(AYL 4.1.214)). The doubling of these two distinct acts within the same character suggests that Lodge’s plot had some basis in queer cultures of the time. As performances continued, her representation of the gender binary remains true to even the modern audience. This feat speaks to the remarkable legacy and legibility of queer characters.
All my geographical conjecture aside, we don't know the audience's response. We don't know how queer people would have thought of themselves, their community, and their history. All I know as a humble queer is Rosalind lives on, not just in the mind of gender nonconformity, but in the heart of trans characters. (Below, Map titled "Plan of the Cities of London & Westminster with the Borough of Southwark." Image from Stow, "A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster...")
Rosalind as Representative
It’s fairly obvious that Rosalind presents a character in defiance of gender roles and norms and that her continued reappearance is in conversation with queer communities as it informs her performance and her fans. But the queer lens necessitates for the analyst to ask how Rosalind perpetuates and thwarts hierarchical gender binaries. In this respect, I don’t think she really holds up as an original voice.
The unique queer nature of AYL does not come from Rosalind’s challenge to the gender binary. Instead, the challenge is presented through Orlando, who loves her in any way she presents herself. A woman dressing as a man to protect herself and her companion registers as a comment about the abuses women suffer on account of gender rather than an inherent difference between sexes. For a woman specifically within this trope, Rosalind fulfills a transmisogynistic role: part of her definition of masculinity requires putting women down, revealing that she is empowered while acting as a man but emotionally weak when pretending to be a woman.
The novelty of Rosalind as a character to the modern audience is one that finds joy in the revered and prestigious connotation of Shakespeare being associated with a gender-nonconforming character. The association feels like a heavy weight in favor of queer visibility and authenticity. Shakespeare's status allows his characters to feel like figureheads in a cause that he may not have necessarily cared for them to be in. Furthermore, she was not Shakespeare’s first cross-dressing character, and the play itself didn't make any known notable waves outside of its popularity. How much of that should be attributed to her own merit, and how much to her maker?
Conclusion Based on My Poor Gay Heart
Was Rosalind iconic? Yes. Did she have a historical place in the evolution of London drag culture? I believe so. Is she reliably queer through the centuries? Yes. But is she subverting gender binaries in any original or revolutionary fashion? Not by a long shot. Rosalind has a special place in my heart as a part of my queer awakening. However, I can accept that she is not the end-all-be-all of historical literary queers and, perhaps, shouldn't be considered one to begin with.
This essay is part of the Shakespeare, Sort Of series, a project exploring archival research and Shakespearean adaptations. Find every SSO essay here.
References
As You Like It, 2018. American Players Theatre. Directed by James Bohnen. Hill Theatre. https://americanplayers.org/plays/as-you-like-it-2018
Beckman, Margaret Boerner. “The Figure of Rosalind In As You Like It.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, 1978, pp. 44–51. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2869168.
Bevington, David. “Performance History.” Internet Shakespeare Editions. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/AYL_StageHistory/index.html
Britton, John. Illustrations of the public buildings of London. v.1 London, 1825-1828. Pg 227-261
Britton, John. Illustrations of the public buildings of London. v.2 London, 1825-1828. Pg v-1
Cutter. Stow, John. A survey of the cities of London and Westminster and the borough of… v.1 London, 1754-55. Pg 1.
"drag, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2022, www.oed.com/view/Entry/57406.
East Ends Women’s Museum “Miss Muff’s Molly House in Whitechapel.” November 20, 2016. https://eastendwomensmuseum.org/blog/miss-muffs-molly-house-in-whitechapel#:~:text=In%2018th%20century%20London%20a,or%20a%20woman%20selling%20sex.
Hadfield, Andrew. “SPENSER’S ROSALIND.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 104, no. 4, 2009, pp. 935–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25655039. Accessed Dec. 2022.
Haley, Henry J. (Henry James), b. 1874, artist. Watercolor full-body portrait. Folger Shakespeare Library’s LUNA database.
Kendal, Madge. 1849-1935, subject. Full-body watercolor portrait. Folger Shakespeare Library’s LUNA database.
Lewis, artist. 1836. Full-body pencil portrait. Folger Shakespeare Library’s LUNA database.
Pennant, Thomas. Some account of London. London?, 1791. Pg 1
Pilkington, John. “All Women's Parts to be Acted by Women.” English Historical Fiction Authors, May 22, 2020. https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2020/05/all-womens-parts-to-be-acted-by-women.html
Reynolds’s Newspaper. “The Men in Petticoats. -Horrible and Revolting Disclosures.” Issue 1032, May 22, 1870. https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=1032&userGroupName=wisc_madison&inPS=true&mCode=1ZUK&prodId=BNCN&issueDate=118700522
Shakespeare Learning Zone .“Act 4 Scene 1 | As You Like It | 2019 | Royal Shakespeare Company”
Royal Shakespeare Company. September 15, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWIze4vYVcg
Wendeatt, James Samuel, 1861-1944, photographer. Upper body photograph. Folger Shakespeare Library’s LUNA database.
A special thank you to UW-Madison’s Special Collection staff in Memorial Library. Without them, this article would not have been possible.
Further Reading
Avila, Alexander. “The End of Rainbow Capitalism.” Youtube.com. June 25, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xQVFYWvd3o&t=624s
“Drag Before RuPaul” WalterFilm. January 28, 2022. https://www.walterfilm.com/drag-before-rupaul/
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