SOURCE: “Body and Spirit, Stage and Sexuality in The Tempest,” in ELH, Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall, 1997, pp. 683-701.

In the essay below, Johnson examines early-modern selfhood, sexual identity, and authorship in their relation to The Tempest, contending that “The Tempest demonstrates that sexuality and authorship are nevertheless bound up in compelling ways with the question of identity on the early-modern stage.”

I.

Writing Plays Confuted in Five Actions in 1582, Stephen Gosson encounters a momentary setback in his condemnation of stage plays. After all, he admits, Gregory Naziancen once wrote “a Playe of Christe.” But, Gosson asks, “to what ende? To be Plaid upon Stages? neither Players nor their friendes are able to prove it.”¹ Naziancen's play is morally acceptable because it cannot conclusively be linked to actual performances. This distinction between a written text and a fully-embodied theatrical production becomes crucial for Gosson as he details the abuses to...