Gender and Sexual Fluidity in Twelfth Night Taryn Mayer College

Because disguise and mistaken identity is such a central theme in many of Shakespeare’s comedies, so too then is gender ambiguity, with many female characters disguising themselves as men. The fact that young male actors played these characters, making them a boy dressed as a woman dressed as a boy, further augments this ambiguity. This ambiguity then extends from gender to sexuality in Twelfth Night with a true love triangle between Orsino, Olivia and Viola (or Cesario as Olivia knows her). This love triangle could be completely heterosexual, if one interprets Olivia’s character as only attracted to “Cesario” as a male, could be simply bisexual, or could be “sexually fluid,” defying easy categorization and reveling in the complexities of androgyny.

When discussing sexuality in any Shakespeare play one must note that concepts of sexuality were different than from the modern perception of strict, specific identity labels for gender and sexuality. Casey Charles sums the perspective of the Renaissance up neatly in his article “Gender Trouble in Twelfth Night” saying Shakespeare’s plays, including Twelfth Night, were written in “an early modern culture in which the categories of homo- and bisexuality were neither fixed nor...