Cross-Dressing as Ambisexual Style: Queer Twists in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
This paper examines cross-dressing in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Reading the novel’s gender topsy-turviness in light of the carnivalesque 1910 Dreadnought Hoax, for which Woolf cross-dressed as an Abyssinian Prince, I explore the seductiveness of queer non-conformity. Rather than focusing on Butleria...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)
2019-06-01
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| Series: | E-REA |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7688 |
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| Summary: | This paper examines cross-dressing in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Reading the novel’s gender topsy-turviness in light of the carnivalesque 1910 Dreadnought Hoax, for which Woolf cross-dressed as an Abyssinian Prince, I explore the seductiveness of queer non-conformity. Rather than focusing on Butlerian socio-political theories on gender, I underline the existential dimension of clothes trouble. Focusing on Orlando’s love relationships and following Clotilde Leguil’s Lacanian reading of gender vacillation, I contend that Woolf’s fanciful biography pertains to Cixous’s écriture feminine as it connects sexual difference, love and writing. |
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| ISSN: | 1638-1718 |