Amadis de Gaule is the French name for a massive romance cycle popular across Europe in various languages. The original story in four volumes composed in the 14th century in Spain was expanded and extended by at least seven different authors into 21 volumes in the French version (the best known). The core story is a chivalric adventures of a young man – the child of a star crossed royal love affair – and the obstacles to his romance with Oriana. The additional volumes follow various secondary characters from the original tale.
Amadis de Gaule
14th century Spanish romance that includes a cross-dressing female knight who attracts a woman’s desire and returns it.
LHMP entry
In considering various types of transgressive cross-dressing (e.g., for theatrical purposes), Schleiner begins by looking at some literary models available within that context that focus around logistical gender disguise.
“Travesty” comes literally from “cross-dress” with the theatrical term later picking up its sense of general transgression. Anyone familiar with theater and opera from Shakespeare onward is aware how popular it was to include gender disguise in its many forms and consequences. The two most common expressions both revolve around anxiety about female-female desire: a woman disguised as a man who attracts female romantic attention, or a man disguised as a woman to gain intimate access to a woman who then worries about the ensuing “wrong” erotic attraction.
