Feminist Theory Texts - Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)

Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando for her lover Vita Sackville-West, and it's chock-full of all kinds of goodness. Its eponymous hero (i.e., the dude who's name is in the title) begins his life as a young man, but wakes up one morning to discover that he's suddenly a woman.

If that isn't awesome enough for you, just think: Orlando's life spans a huge timeline. We begin in Britain's Elizabethan period, and end in the early 20th century. Gender-swapping AND time-warping? Orlando's got it all.

So ponder this, fair reader: how do Orlando's thoughts about gender change when "he" becomes "she"? And does Judith Butler's theory of gender performance line up with the story that Virginia Woolf tells?