“Cou’d You Put On Our Sex With Your Breeches”: Destabilising Libertine Performance in Thomas Southerne’s Sir Anthony Love: or, The Rambling Lady

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines both on stage and on page libertine performance of a cross-dressing female rake-hero in Thomas Southerne’s Sir Anthony Love (1690). It argues that the libertine performance of a female rake-hero destabilises notions of gender identity and satirises Restoration representations of male libertinism. Bringing back the importance of knowing the actress in the role, Susanna Mountfort celebrated for the breeches role, this paper suggests that libertine performance of female cross-dressing rakes cannot be simply dismissed as a female version of a charming rake of Restoration comedy or a female libertine with robust sexual appetite. The heroine’s excellent performance of masculinity and its appeal to both sexes enable the audiences to see how subversive their cross-dressing performance can be. By revealing ruptures in the cultural foundations of male-female differences and of heterosexuality that support patriarchal authority, Sir Anthony’s performance continues to disrupt this order when it better represents Restoration libertine figures than any other men in the play do.