SHAKES-QUEER? New Evidence Emerges to Prove William Shakespeare may be Gay

Ananova Breaking News Wire and the London Daily Sun ^ | Monday, April 22, 2002 00:14 GMT | What Tomorrow's Newspapers Say Staff

[codebreaker]

Ananova Breaking Wire-

What the Papers Say-The London Daily Sun

SHAKESQUEER

Me thinks new evidence has emerged that doth suggest William Shakespeare might have been gay.

I RULE

Tony Blair delivered an astonishing slapdown to Gordon Brown yesterday by stressing that Britain had elected him to run the country not the chancellor

Story Filed: 00:14 Monday, April 22, 2002 Greenwich Mean Time

[codebreaker]

Lincoln, Robin Hood..who next?

[codebreaker]

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_107.html?menu=

[Dog Gone]

Shouldn't you have posted this on the cheese forum?

[codebreaker]

I don't think the gay community thinks it is cheese, they seem to come up with a new celebrity press release each month who 'could be' gay...

[Dog Gone]

Can't argue with you there...

[Calculus_of_Consent]

Maybe they just mean he was bright and happy. I don't think gay meant sodomite in Shakespeare's day.

[codebreaker]

I think there are full time academics calling each other like Oprah's book club..what historical figure should we 'make gay' this month..

[codebreaker]

I always liked the word as describing someones mood, it was such a nice expression before it obtained another meaning.

[Alas]

There is a huge differance in being gay and being a homosexual. I have no doubts that Good ole Bill was gay, but find it next to impossible to think of him as a perverted sodomite homosexual.

[DainBramage]

ROMEO

By a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am:

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,

Because it is an enemy to thee;

Had I it written, I would tear the word.

By the by, I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars.

[aristeides]

There are reasons for thinking that Shakespeare was what we would now call bisexual. This was not a concept that existed in Shakespeare's day, so not only would he not have not identified himself on that basis, he wouldn't even have used such a word for himself.

This was the era of the wars of religion, when persons with the wrong views, like Catholics under Elizabeth, were threatened with persecution and worse. We know Shakespeare's father was a Catholic even after that became illegal, and there is good reason to believe that Shakespeare himself was educated as a Catholic when that was illegal. He was certainly not an open Catholic during his adult career, but I think there is no way to know what his real private opinions were. The sympathy he exhibits for Catholic kings of England in his history plays and for Catholic priests in plays like Romeo and Juliet suggests to me he remained a Catholic at heart. But, whether or not that is true, his family history and his youth gave him reason to sympathize with Catholics, who were regarded as the arch-traitors in Elizabeth's England. That gave him skepticism and sympathy for all sorts of characters, including villains.

And, in his day, religious loyalties and sympathies counted for far more than sexual orientation. Even a semiopen pederast like Christopher Marlowe identified himself more as a freethinking atheist than as a pederast.

[codebreaker]

LOL! I missed that stanza..

[Torie]

The link is inoperative, but if "Shakespere" was in fact Lord Oxford, than he was most certainly gay.

[MoJo2001]

Abraham Lincoln and William Shakespeare are gay?? Jesus Christ will be next. This totally reeks of Tina Brown and her ilk!

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

NEWS FLASH

William Shakespeare is DEAD

[The Duke]

BFD

[shaggy eel]

,,, "As you like it"?

[gcruse]

 New Evidence Emerges to Prove William Shakespeare may be Gay

You don't prove 'may.'

[onedoug]

Add that he was an actor. A theatre person. Near obligatory randy pants.

Though he was also on the members roles at St Savoris parish, later to become Soutwark Cathedral, just east along the road from the Globe.

...Though again, With all his theatre pals.