Was Shakpeare gay? That is the qutn... | Blogs & featur | Shakpeare's Globe

Contents:

• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?THAT IS THE QUTN...
• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY OR BISEXUAL? MORN SCHOLARS REVIS A THORNY QUTN
• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY? HIS SEXUALY IS STILL DEBATED BY SCHOLARS TODAY
• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?
• 11 PIEC OF EVINCE WE HAD A GAY SHAKPEARE
• WAS SHAKPEARE GAY, AND DO MATTER?

WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?

“It’s bee fashnable sce the mid-1980s to thk of Shakpeare as 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”.

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?

WAS SHAKPEARE GAY?THAT IS THE QUTN...

DOLLIMORE: I don’t know whether Shakpeare was gay or not, bee he didn’t leave any personal rerd. 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?

WAS SHAKPEARE GAY OR BISEXUAL? MORN SCHOLARS REVIS A THORNY QUTN

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.

WAS SHAKPEARE GAY? HIS SEXUALY IS STILL DEBATED BY SCHOLARS TODAY

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?

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.

11 PIEC OF EVINCE WE HAD A GAY SHAKPEARE

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. Dr Will Tosh, Was Shakpeare gay?

In 1640, a prtg of his sons changed most of the male pronouns to female to obscure any reference to potential homosexualy. Did a gay – or bisexual – Shakpeare sert queer them to his work? Do this, then, tablish that Shakpeare was gay?

WAS SHAKPEARE GAY, AND DO MATTER?

In most s, I would avoid assigng a sexualy to the wrer of a poem wh gay ntent. That thor embedd so many arguably gay and lbian character motivatns to his works that they’re hontly impossible to ignore once you’re keyed to them.

Artistic director of the Royal Shakpeare Company Greg Doran said 2017 that productns of Shakpeare’s plays wh gay subplots should emphasize the plays’ gay ntent: “Sometim those gay characters are not played as gay, and I thk the 21st century that’s no longer acceptable. I would suggt that theatergoers of the Bard’s day would have found such “gay” characters suggtive, and they may also have nodd and wked at the prospect that his characters might pair off offstage ways that would shock the gentry.

Whether he nscly add a “special sce” of homosexualy, we may never know fively, but at least we n wonr at the ambiguy of all. Was Shakpeare Gay?