Manly Rosalind and Feminine Rosalynde : Audience Perception in Shakespeare and Lodge

This paper compares Rosalynde from Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde; or Euphues' Golden Legacy (1590) with Rosalind from William Shakespeare's As You Like It (1598) and examines the differences between audiences' perception toward Rosalynde who is read through the prose romance and Rosalind who is seen through boy actors' performance. Comparing two heroines, it is found that Shakespeare's Rosalind has manly activeness that Lodge's Rosalynde does not have, and she originally has it rather than acquiring it by disguising as a page. This disposition was added by Shakespeare for boy actors who played as Rosalind, and because of the audience's reaction to a boy's acting as the heroine, and the feature of the boy actor for a heroine who was chosen by Shakespeare, there is significance in a boy actor' s playing as manly Rosalind. Although a boy actor's playing Rosalind could cause audience's visual confusion in the homoerotic scene between Ganymede and Orlando, it was not problematized it as much as some problems among heterosexual couples such as adultery and incest, because Shakespeare's audiences in the 16th century seemed to accept this scene as a dramatic illusion and dissociate it from the actual. Thus, both Shakespeare and Lodge's audiences seemed to receive Rosalynde or Rosalind as the heroine genuinely until the end.