Cross-dressing in literature

[3] Assuming a male identity allows them to travel safely, pursue jobs traditionally only available to men, and find heterosexual romance by breaking away from the all-female social world of the private sphere during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

When the Greek envoy arrives to fetch him for battle, Odysseus is suspicious of Achilles' absence and concocts a scheme to reveal the deception: he offers gifts to all the women, including among them a sword and shield.

Then he has an alarm sounded, and when Achilles instinctively grabs the weapons to defend himself, the ruse is revealed and he must join the Greek army and fight at Troy.

Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590-1596) includes a long section about Britomart, who dons male armor, falls in love with a woman, and has many adventures as a man.

In Arcadia (1593), Sir Philip Sidney has one of the heroes, Pyrocles, disguise himself as an Amazon called Zelmane in order to approach his beloved Philoclea.

In Anthony Powell's From a View to a Death (1933), Major Fosdick's penchant for going to his room and donning a black sequin evening dress and a large picture-hat ultimately leads to his unraveling.