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Katherine Bovey and Mary Pope

Two 17th century English women who lived together for 40 years "in perfect friendship" and whose friendship was considered to be the reason for the widowed Bovey's decision not to remarry.

LHMP entry

Renaissance drama provides a case study in how lesbian themes and female homoerotic potential can be hidden in plain sight simply by the denial of their possibility. Traub notes that even today one can find vehement denials of homoerotic content in such overtly suggestive works as Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. And less overt content may only emerge into view through an awareness of the era’s understanding and encoding of female desire and forms of female intimacy.

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historical