The passage by Hic Mulier had a lot of negative things to say about cross-dressing in plays. He obviously does not like the idea of cross-dressing. The author claims it looks deformed and ugly. He compliments in long drawn out poetic rhetoric that women are beautiful, true, and glorious.
The author’s tone is very disagreeing of cross-dressing. But the crowd that went to see Shakes plays were probably open to it since it was the norm. Since the play was a comedy it would only add to the comedic tone of the play. In the play they used cross-dressing as a comedic theme. There were cases of mistaken identity in the play in which Viola was caught up in a love triangle. She was a large part of the play and I’m sure if people did not largely accept the idea of a cross-dressing man or woman this play would have not become so popular.
It seems that the author could have been speaking for a smaller group of progressive yet prejudice people of the time. The author made clear his negative stance on the issue but there was an undertone of hate in his writing “you that have made Admiration an ass and fooled him with a deformity never before dreamed of.” While he makes a point that women should be playing the part of women in the plays, he seems upset at the fact that they are so unattractive. I believe maybe he was scarred at an accidental attraction he had to one of these burly broads. Of course eventually everyone felt that is was right for women to participate in plays but in this case, the idea of cross-dressing in a play is just funny. This mindset was progressive for its time but it wasn’t yet refined enough to really touch a cord with the commonfolk
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