On the 456th anniversary of his birth, people are terted to know if William Shakpeare was gay. The answer is more plited than people know.
Contents:
- WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
- 11 PIEC OF EVINCE WE HAD A GAY SHAKPEARE
- WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?THAT IS THE QUTN...
- NO, SHAKPEARE WAS NOT GAY
- WAS SHAKPEARE GAY, AND DO MATTER?
- WAS SHAKPEARE GAY OR BISEXUAL? MORN SCHOLARS REVIS A THORNY QUTN
- WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
- WAS SHAKPEARE GAY? HIS SEXUALY IS STILL DEBATED BY SCHOLARS TODAY
- SHAKPEARE WAS GAY, WROTE SONS FOR MEN: UK SCHOLAR
WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
'Was Shakpeare Gay?' - the qutn discsed episo seven of our Let's Talk Shakpeare podst. From the Shakpeare Birthplace Tst. * shakespeare was gay *
This is a really big qutn that people have wrten a great al about, so this episo acts as a sort of summary of some of the arguments for and agast Shakpeare beg gay. I’m Jennifer Reid, and today we’re askg, “Was Shakpeare gay?
And prev podsts, I’ve played you lots of short clips om a variety of speakers, but this week I’m gog to do slightly differently, and play you fewer, longer clips, as the clips ought to be played their was Shakpeare gay? DOLLIMORE: I don’t know whether Shakpeare was gay or not, bee he didn’t leave any personal rerd.
11 PIEC OF EVINCE WE HAD A GAY SHAKPEARE
Was Shakpeare gay? It difficult to terme whether Shakpeare was gay bee only snt documentary evince has survived about his personal life." emprop="scriptn * shakespeare was gay *
So, what that actually entailed [sic] people isn’t the equivalent of what a lovg gay relatnship is, whether or not Shakpeare was gay is a difficult qutn. One thg that is fe, though, is that there was no self-inty as gay or homosexual or, as far as we know, any other term durg that time perd. So, Shakpeare certaly didn’t go around self-intifyg himself as homosexual or bisexual or straight or gay.
Michael Dobson explored this ia, the ia of Shakpeare’s awarens of different sexuali and sexual preferenc when I spoke to Well, sofar as the tegori of gay and straight didn’t exist, then he wasn’t gay, but that equally means that he uldn’t have been straight eher. There's a lot of bate about whether anybody was gay, any of the morn sense, Elizabethan culture, or whether there were jt certa thgs they did, sometim, that didn’t actually fe a particular set of inti. So, the morn term would probably be… terted, rather than, [lghs] rather than gay.
Did Shakpeare have relatns, or lovg relatns, wh a male person – was he, as we say, gay? Well he certaly wasn’t gay the plete sense of the word throughout his life, bee he marri early, marri young, and he has three children – so to that extent, he’s heterosexual. However, ’s not impossible, my view, that Shakpeare did have sexual relatns, actually wh both femal (other than his wife) and wh don’t portray homosexual relatnships very clearly his plays.
WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?THAT IS THE QUTN...
Let's explore 11 piec of evince and unver hidn clu om his sons and plays that support the possibily of a gay Shakpeare. * shakespeare was gay *
But over to Greg, to expand upon this and tell you what he thks about Shakpeare’s Was Shakpeare gay?
Well, there’s a lot of nonsense talked about this “gay wasn’t really gay then”, as if human nature and the exprsn of human feelgs changed this one regard the last 400 years. I do believe Shakpeare was gay, and… Ah, you know, as I say that I’m aware that everyone tends to st Shakpeare their own image, some way, so I, as a gay man, brought up a Catholic Lanshire, like to feel that Shakpeare might have spent his last years as a teacher Lanshire, had some Catholic sensibili (or at least an unrstandg of the nostalgia for the old fah), and that he experienced a passnate sire for his own sex! ” Now, that is a pretty [chuckl] extraordary erotic scriptn of male of urse, there’s also a scriptn on the battlefield of homophobia – of homophobic prejudice, at any rate – and the most scurrilo terms, the mouth of Thers Troil and Crsida, where he ris the love of Achill for his iend Patrocl, sayg, “Thou art thought to be Achill' male varlet.
It’s a brilliant scriptn of homophobia. And, I thk there has been homophobia regnisg where those relatnships – those gay relatnships Shakpeare occur. So, if Shakpeare wasn’t gay, he certaly had a great passn for and an unrstandg of gay relatnships, that’s certaly the se.
NO, SHAKPEARE WAS NOT GAY
Shall we pare thee to a summer's gay? For thou art as fabulo. * shakespeare was gay *
“It’s bee fashnable sce the mid-1980s to thk of Shakpeare as gay.
WAS SHAKPEARE GAY, AND DO MATTER?
The great actor Sir Ian McKellen, who is also well-known as a gay activist, was recently quoted the prs as sayg that Shakpeare himself was probably gay. Inved to ment on this, I poted out that there was nothg new the ia, which for a long time has been equently exprsed pecially bee some of his sons are clearly addrsed to a male. * shakespeare was gay *
Vickers, a visg profsor at Universy College London, asserted that a Tim Lerary Supplement book review was wrong to state that Shakpeare’s 119 son was wrten a “primarily homosexual ntext”. I do a ep dive and unver trac of evince that suggt we had a gay Shakpeare.
WAS SHAKPEARE GAY OR BISEXUAL? MORN SCHOLARS REVIS A THORNY QUTN
Did a gay - or bisexual - Shakpeare sert queer them to his work? If so, he was even more subversive and groundbreakg than we thought. * shakespeare was gay *
If there’s one thg that everyone the world has mon, ’s an unfortunate and often shamefully hidn love of tryg to figure out whether or not famo people are gay. Google any famo name pl the word gay, and you’ll fd that someone’s beaten you to the speculative punch. William Shakpeare gets a particular amount of attentn the gay/straight arena.
Piec of evince that support the possibily of a gay Shakpeare. I end up wanrg ep to this rabb hole (no immature pun tend) and dug up the 11 piec of evince that are prented “oh yeah, Shakpeare was gay” bate. It’s so blatant that the people the “Shakpeare wasn’t gay” mp really only argue that this poem isn’t necsarily wrten by Shakpeare as Shakpeare… but, rather, uld be him wrg as a character.
(And if you’re dog Othello at a homogeneo high school, perhaps more cross-racial make-up applitn, too. Of urse, this isn’t to say that cross-drsg is a 1:1 match wh homosexualy. Now, aga, merely wrg about two men kissg as they die to exprs their lifelong love don’t mean the person wrg is gay.
WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
* shakespeare was gay *
6 | Hamlet acrostic spells “I am a homosexual”. There’s an urban legend that, the very first published py of Hamlet, the first letters of the fal 14 l spelled out “I am a homosexual.
11 | Conmng Achill’s gay relatnship. For all the Shakpeare-gay speculatn, there’s only one time where Shakpeare directly discs homosexualy his works. One, if today’s right-wg policians have tght anythg, ’s that the people who nmn homosexualy the loust are the on who are, by far, the most likely to get ught wh a man an airport, tck stop, or public park bathroom.
And two, while such a venomo anti-gay speech uld seem to shut the door on this entire “was he/wasn’t he?
WAS SHAKPEARE GAY? HIS SEXUALY IS STILL DEBATED BY SCHOLARS TODAY
Even if Shakpeare was gay, the societal attu toward homosexualy led up wh the rant above. Even though Troil and Crsida is set durg the Trojan War, the speech there reflects the Elizabethan attus toward homosexualy. To wrap up, there’s, clearly, no five evince that Shakpeare was gay.
SHAKPEARE WAS GAY, WROTE SONS FOR MEN: UK SCHOLAR
Actors today’s theatre regularly portray the relatnships as homosexual, and ed actors are often crlo toward anyone who doubts that to be the se. In Troil and Crsida, Patrocl is moured to be Achill’ “mascule whore” (V, 1, le 17), as is suggted Homer, and certaly the two are very close iendship, though Patrocl do admonish Achill to engage battle by sayg, A woman impunt and mannish grown Is not more loathed than an effemate man In time of actn Aga, on the morn stage this relatnship is often portrayed as obvly, even flagrantly, sexual; but whether Shakpeare saw as such, or the play valoriz homosexualy or bisexualy, is another matter. In 1640, a prtg of his sons changed most of the male pronouns to female to obscure any reference to potential homosexualy.
Dr Will Tosh, Was Shakpeare gay? Take, for stance, All is Te, a recent film produced by Sony Pictur Classics, which shows Shakpeare as a homosexual.
They subject Shakpeare to iologil fads and fashns, killg his works wh Marxist, femist, and nstctnist cricism, as well as the homosexism of so-lled “queer theory, ” which was the agenda drivg the Sony Pictur film. This is not to say that homosexual practice did not exist, of urse, though would not and uld not have been lled “homosexual” Shakpeare’s time bee that word is self an ventn of the late neteenth century, when was employed to signify somethg pathologil.