Posted on 01/09/2008 10:56:17 AM PST by bs9021
Shakesqueer
by: Bethany Stotts, January 09, 2008
Chicago, Ill.—The recent Shakespeare panel at the 2007 Modern Language Association (MLA) convention, ironically titled “Shakesqueer,” featured four queer theorists presenting articles soon to be published by the notoriously liberal Duke University press. The panelists described the collection as the first reputable, scholarly collection of Shakespeare queer theory criticism, and it will join other illustrious Duke Press lesbian bisexual gay transsexual (LGBT) titles such as “Barbie’s Queer Accessories,” “Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies,” “Female Masculinity,” and “In the Name of National Security: Hitchcock, Homophobia, and the Political Construction of Gender in Postwar America.”
They presented a quick peek inside their theses:
Hamlet.....
Asserting that Hamlet’s faults derive not from his hostile intentions, but from his overwhelming desire to reestablish the reproductive norm, Nonokawa implied that Hamlet is a “monster” because he uses ruthless methods to enforce monogamous, opposite-sex marriages. According to Nonokawa Hamlet is “stricken by his excess of filial passion for the reassertion of norm. Hamlet is truly too much in the son, too much, that is, his father’s son.” This turns him into a “monster of normativity incapable of ... seeing how much he gets off on the luxury of his antiluxurious discourse.”
Romeo and Juliet...
“Changing the gender of objects of desire can easily leave intact the grand mystified romance of star-crossed lovers struggling—and failing— to surmount insuperable cultural impediments to their love... Romeo and Juliet can remain in tragically romantic dire straights, even when it’s a girl-on-girl song,” she said.
...
Cleopatra and Antony....
Love’s Labors Lost.....
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
Except for the inconvenient fact that De Vere died before Shakespeare's best works were produced.
I've never heard it put like that, but, if so, it's not as if W.S. has the typical gay adgenda in mind. In the 3rd Sonnet, for instance, he's advising the young man to go find a woman and have children, or till his husbandry, as he puts it.
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. But if thou live, remember'd not to be, Die single and thine image dies with thee
More anti-Microsoft slander! Does it never end?
The real problem with this sort of analysis is that it matters a very great deal to Queer Studies historians whether Will was gay but not one bit to the lit-crit theorists for whom the author is irrelevant. Let 'em slap-fight.
Uh, no. They were dedicated to a patron, as almost all works were in those days. The patron paid the bills, so Willy could write for a living. In return, the patron got to show how sophisticated a supporter of the arts he was.
But they were not addressed to the patron.
That’s what I would like to know. I was an English major and I was never under the impression that these sonnets were addressed to a man.
I never had a professor waste any time on that interpretation either.
As I understand it, if you read the first 126 sonnets all together it is clear that they are all referring to one person who is male.
I guess they're voting for Hillary since one of the topics is "female masculinity".
I forget the name of the English historian whose theory is this sonnet in particular is addressed to Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, who died at the age of 11 a victim of the plague.
Overuse of that construction annoys me too. Also, the practice of starting in the middle of a story like:
“I saw her in the grocery store that Tuesday afternoon. I couldn’t quite place where I knew her from but she rang that tiny golden bell, so reminiscent of dinner bells and clanging gongs. Then I knew, and remembered that OTHER Tuesday, in the grocery store when I saw her and...”
Some of the sonnets may raise a few eyebrows.
However, my favorite story is about a class from a Duke educated professor who was a deconstructionist. One of the essays we had to read was from a feminist who railed and ranted about how there weren’t any great women writers of antiquity or until recent times because they weren’t able to write with a pen. (yes the writing tool)
According to her theory it was created and developed by male chauvinists to intimidate women because it resembled a pen(is). And so female authoresses couldn’t use their brains and imagination to write and many great works were lost.
The professor went on at length about this provacative essay until I asked him about the genesis of the earliest form of writing—the cuniform alphabetic writing—and why females didn’t use it to develop a body of work. It seemed to me that it would be right up their alley.
There is NO reason ANYONE should want to. Their brilliance and power stand on their own.
I a’int buyin it, though I admit its been awhile since I read the complete works and the Sonnets.
I think i would have recalled something to the effect of “Harketh, dude! Thou hast a package most fair.”
:]
But they were not addressed to the patron.
They may not have been addressed to the patron but they were addressed to a man.
All's Weird That Ends Weird.
Yes, but he is advising the young man to have children in order to preserve the young man's own beauty. In other words W.S. is an admirer of this beauty.
Thank you for making that distinction. Hard to believe that some people don't know the difference.
When I first heard about this I didn't want to buy it either. But I decided the evidence is pretty good, although it's not as blatant as your example.
See #33.
These people define the term elitist scum.
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