Joseph Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem and Cross-Dressing in Early Modern England

• Authors: Csaba Maczelka
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper argues that early modern English utopias in general, and Joseph Hall’s Mundus alter et idem (1605/1606) in particular, engage in the contemporary debate on cross-dressing. After a look at the problem of early modern cross-dressing, the paper introduces Hall’s work, together with some of the opinions about it. Out of the four books of the work, only the second part (the description of Viraginia/Shee-landt) is discussed here in detail, since it abounds in instances of cross-dressing and related phenomena (for example, sexual licence and hermaphroditism). In my reading, Hall’s work readily joins the ongoing debate, but because of its masterful rhetorical strategies and its satirical perspective, the text poses a great challenge if one tries to accurately identify its position in that debate. Yet the text and some of Hall’s other works testify to a serious interest in cross-dressing and other gender-related issues.

Keywords

EN

Australia; cross-dressing; early modern; England; hermaphroditism; utopia

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Gender Studies
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 68-85

Dates

published

2012-12-01

online

2013-02-08

Contributors

author

Csaba Maczelka

• University of Szeged, 6722-H Szeged Egyetem u. 2., Szeged, Hungary

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10320-012-0029-2