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You wrote:>>> I'm amazed at the people who say understanding Shakespeare's
sexuality isn't integral to engaging with his work. <<<Yeah, some of us are inhibited by facts, in that way.
You also wrote:
>>>> It's central to
an understanding of the sonnets, for example, arguably the
greatest poetry in English. <<<No, it is not. Heterosexual writers create homosexual
characters all of the time. Heterosexual poets can create
a personnae which is homosexual, just as homosexual writers
can create a personnae which is heterosexual.>>> It's central to understanding his rare ability (among
male writers) to create flesh-and-blood women. <<<<Nope. (sigh...)
>>>> It throws a whole new light on the multitude of
sexually ambiguous characters he created--a boy actor playing
a girl dressed up as a boy courted by a girl, etc. <<<Uh, with all due respect, Shakespeare did not "create" this
situation. He borrowed it, as many writers continue to, today,
just as they have for thousands of years. The actor's sex
was (of course) simply a historical inevitablility, something
for which Shakespeare can take neither the blame or the credit.You also wrote:
>>> It speaks to his deep sense of divison and contraries and
the almost ironic dialectics of his most characteristic
language, e.g. "and nothing is but what is not." (Macbeth).<<Irony is a gift, and has nothing to do with one's sexuality.
Or, didn't you know that?With all due respect, this may be the very worst
case of taking a random quote out of context that I have seen
in years.The sexuality of Shakespeare (even if it could be
somehow "proven," which it cannot) sheds absolutlely no
light on the works of fiction which he authored. If an author
had to "be" something in order to write about it, then
George Lucas is a robot, Harper Lee was African-American,
Miller was a witch, Ibsen was a woman, Chechov was
an estate, Moliere was a doctor, Marlowe was the devil himself,
and Sophocles surely slept with his own mother.In other words, balderdash.
-Bruce Spielbauer
Posted by Bruce Spielbauer on April 09, 1997 at 15:38:23
In Reply to "Shakespeare's sexuality (2)" posted by Professor Mike on April 09, 1997 at 08:59:49
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 4.2.97: Top | Help