Abstract
This article seeks to explore how nonbinary, ambiguous, and gender-neutral pronouns are used for gender nonconforming characters in seventeenth-century British literature. Focusing on a particularly interesting time for gender nonconformity in British literature, the article traces queer pronoun use in three poems by Aphra Behn and in the prose narrative Assaulted and Pursued Chastity (1656) by Margaret Cavendish. While the history and grammaticality of singular they and other gender-neutral pronouns has been explored in several linguistic studies, the aesthetic value and historicity of gender-neutral language in literature is still frequently questioned. An examination of what is only a small sample of literary texts that consciously play with unstable pronouns, ambiguously gendered characters , and gender nonconforming language emphasizes the artistic and creative dimension of nonbinary and gender-neutral pronouns. The fact that we find ambivalent pronouns and gender nonconforming characters at the core of many plays, poems, and novels in literary history also shows that readers have been able to comprehend and empathize with queerly gendered characters and pronouns for centuries. There are many reasons why a literary studies approach that focuses on pronouns as elements of form can help us gain new perspectives on some of the current, frequently transphobic and racist, debates on gender-neutral language. First, despite supposed grammatical or aesthetic shortcomings, gender-neutral pronouns, including singular they, have been in use, in literary as well as quotidian discourse, for centuries. Through an exploration of queer(ed) pronoun use in seventeenth-century British literature, this essay seeks to show how nonbinary, gender-neutral, and ambiguous pronouns WSQ_Nonbinary_interior_v2.indd 44 WSQ_Nonbinary_interior_v2.indd 44