The articles looks at the phenomenon of crossdressing in England contrasting several angles: polemical literature condemning it, legal records punishing it, and cultural practices (such as theater) normalizing it, as well as some of the socio-economic background that made cross-dressing a flashpoint at this time.
England
Covering topics relating specifically to England or generally to the region equivalent to the modern United Kingdom. Sometimes lazily and inaccurately used generally for the British Isles, especially when articles don’t specifically identify the nationality of authors.
LHMP entry
The focus of this article is how 18th century English audiences perceived and experienced cross-dressing on stage. A large part of the article involves a detailed dissection of the 1713 play The Humours of the Army; or, The Female Officer, by Charles Shadwell. A major theme is the interplay not only between female performers taking on male roles (and its implications off stage), but characters who—within the scope of the performance—perform cross-gender roles. Another aspect of the analysis is a comparison of male versus female stage cross-dressing.
This article looks at the culture of public masquerade entertainments in 18th century England (primarily London), especially in how they promoted and supported an atmosphere of sexual liberty. This reputation of masquerades is solidly documented in social commentary and fiction of the time, such as the works of Pope, Hogarth, Fielding, and others.
Rather than investigating the original context of Sappho’s life and work, this article reviews the chronology of popular understandings and theories about that topic. The chronology jumps around a little in the article so bear with me. [Note: Also, I think the chronology misses some elements.]
In the introductory matter for this book, Bray states: “I have...restricted the scope of the book to questions of male homosexuality. Female homosexuality was rarely linked in popular thought with male homosexuality, if indeed it was recognised at all. Its history is, I believe, best to be understood as part of the developing recognition of a specifically female sexuality.”
I can forgive Vicinus for starting off by claiming that much of the historical work on cross-dressing men has focused on the theater and especially on Shakespeare’s works, only because this article was written before much of the work on gender-crossing and trans history has been done. She’s looking at the couple of decades around 1900, a time when understandings of gender and sexuality were undergoing one of those periodic revolutions. The instability of how to read “male impersonation” came from both the multiplicity of framings of the act itself and the attitude of the viewer.
In this article, Lanser examines the intersection of changing conceptions of sexual difference (i.e., the difference between male and female) and changing attitudes toward sexuality in the 18th century, specifically with regard to how female homosexuality plays a part in these processes.
This article examines the interactions of class and sapphic desire in the “long 18th century,” arguing for a complex interaction between the two. That is, that class could insulate women from scrutiny of their intimate friendships with women, but that suspicion concerning women’s intimate friendships could degrade their class standing.
This article examines the question “were the Bluestockings queer?” Also the converse “were Bluestocking and ‘lesbian’ mutually contradictory?” On the Bluestocking side, Lanser places 5 women generally considered the movers and shakers: Elizabeth Robinson Montagu, Elizabeth Carter, Catherine Talbot, Hester Mulso Chapone, and Sarah Robinson Scott. The Bluestockings weren’t a clearly defined group and membership was sometimes assigned from outside, rather than being a self-identification—a process in which historians have participated.
This is a high-level overview of the English Bluestocking movement(?), as part of a special volume of Huntington Library Quarterly on “Reconsidering the Bluestockings.” As such, it doesn’t touch much on specifically sapphic topics, but provides a useful context for various individual Bluestockings.
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