ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the narrative role of body language communicated in disguises and cross-dressing in one rather lengthy episode in the first of Happel's novels, Der Asiatische Onogambo, which published in 1673. Though Silence and Happel's novel are 300 years apart, it is clear that in both texts the idioms of the body aided by disguises and cross-dressing express the fluidity of sex and gender, thus liberating men and women to move about locally and globally in unexpected ways. These texts present with what Ottmar Ette called 'Wissen in Bewegung', that is knowledge which moves across boundaries, and in so doing allow the reader to situate him or herself in the geographic, social and cultural contexts beyond their immediate surroundings. In both cases, sex and gender dichotomy not only contributes the impetus for this movement, but it also highlights its deliberate nature, offering an expansive radius of action generally not expected in the Middle Ages or the early modern period.
