Golden Age Disguise - Cross-dressing and Female Disguise in the Works of Tirso de Molina

During the Golden Age of Spanish theater Tirso de Molina was especially wellknown for his prortrayal of women and his use of female disguise and crossdressingon stage. This work examines how this tendency can be understoodas a mechanism for females in the play and in society as a whole to skirtsocietal rules and gain power to act and achieve their goals. Although crossdressinghas typically been understood in psycho-sexual terms I argue thatan analysis using power mechanisms is a better fit. The dificullty that resultsin the use of disguise and cross-dressing is a tendency for Tirso's charachtersto lose control of themselves and their created identity. This highlights thedangers inherent in the use of masquing behavior. This work is designed forthose working with Spanish Golden Age theater. It is also applicable as acompanion to studies in English theater of the period and can be read incomparison with feminist and psychological analysis of theater. Because indeals with cross-dressing this book may also be of use to gender andsexuality studies.