Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature - Scarecrow Press

INTRODUCTION • xxxi
rather than tales of active female desire. Foster cites a ballad called
Huon of Bordeaux (c. 1220) as the earliest of these. In a world dominated,
defined and segregated by ideas of gender, in which the maintenance
of both masculinity and femininity, and the distinction between
male and female bodies is one of the primary organizing principles of
culture, it is natural that anxieties around gender confusion would often
be expressed. Tales in which women dress as men in order to escape
danger or attain freedom are common from the Middle Ages through the
early modern period in Europe and from the classical period in South
Asia. In many of these tales another women falls for the woman in her
male disguise. In some cases the attraction is physically expressed and
occasionally it persists even after the revelation of true identity. In any
case these stories differ from modern lesbian stories in that they express
a slippage and confusion regarding gender, rather than an active assertion
of essential identity or romantic choice. Nevertheless, they allow
for the exploration of same-sex desires that must have existed at the
time, and they represent a significant development in the history of expressions
of same-sex desire in literature.
Both Foster and Terry Castle focus on a long Italian narrative poem
first published by Ludovico Ariosto in 1516. Castle uses this poem, Orlando
Furioso, as the starting point for tracing the evolution of the idea
of the lesbian in modern literature. Orlando Furioso contains an inset
narrative that tells a tale of cross-dressing gender confusion similar to
the ones contained in earlier ballads like Huon of Bordeaux. The poem
itself, however, had a widespread influence on the development of modern
narrative in Europe. It is therefore significant that it contains a story
of what might very broadly be called a lesbian encounter. It will be evident
that transgender and lesbian movement are conflated when one
views Orlando Furioso as part of a lesbian tradition in literature. This
is a common critical move with a long history that will be discussed further
below.
The early modern period, which we might see as beginning after Ariosto
and continuing until roughly 1800, saw an increase in tales of
cross-dressing, gender confusion and gender transgression. Anyone familiar
with the plays of Shakespeare will be able to think of several examples
of cross-dressing narratives at this period. Throughout the 17th
century, these and similar stories were very common on the British
stage. A group of pamphlets that historians and literary critics often