Was he?
>>7938295
>king dies of poison in the ear
>rumors of his son's homosexuality
How the fuck do you not get this?
"Here hung those lips that I kissed I know not how oft."
-Hamlet, speaking of Yorick.
>>7938295
The gays and the Jews are always trying to rewrite history where everyone is gay. Hamlet wasn't gay. Neither was Shakespeare.
They've been trying to prove Shakespeare was gay for 400 years as if it would somehow justify them being gay. And the Jews can't stand that the greatest writer that ever lived was a straight white cis middle class male. It infuriates the both of them. They can't accept it.
And I'm not even a /pol/lack.
>>7938295
Everyone was at least a little gay back then
further evidence:
http://www.myrlinhermes.com/2010/01/was-hamlet-gay-textual-evidence.html
no, he was an ugly fatass. not a qt ergo not gay. straights can have that fat faggot.
"HE WAS A GAY JEWISH COMMUNIST ATHEIST IRISH AFRICAN WOMAN CALLED FRANCIS BACON AND HE WAS A BIGOT/SEXIST/RACIST/CISSY/NAZI/HACK"
t. typical Lit undergraduate
>mfw
>>7938387
You're entitled to your opinion but you at least should have some textual evidence that supports it. The gay Hamlet theory has plenty of evidence. I know it might be hard for you to swallow that someone who isn't a straight White male could be or make anything of worth, but it's the reality and you have to deal with it.
>>7938317
Everyone has always been a little bit gay
Why does he need to be sexualized?
It's a play that explores the tragedy of human existence, a tale of struggle and revenge.
Then, quite a few centuries later, people somehow think the character possibly having a different sexuality is a central theme in the play.
What the fuck is wrong with people today? Not everything has to be gay and if it is, why is it even worthy of a second thought?
>>7938441
Thigh-fucking underage boys = "male friendship"
>>7938420
You still can't offer a counter argument. Lol
>>7938490
I was thinking more about for instance Akhilleos and Patroklos, it is quite terrifying how people who are supposedly intellectual adults, believe that because Akhilleos has strong feelings for his friend, it logically follows that they must have been lovers.
>>7938547
Well since homosexuality wasn't uncommon during that time, it isn't a stretch of the imagination.
>>7938527
What argument did you offer exactly?
"There are texts that say he's gay..."
Okay, so one reading of Hamlet is definitive because it's what you want Hamlet and, by extension, Shakespeare himself to be? Got it. Fantastic argument.
Hamlet and Horatio were not gay lovers. Just because he denies Ophelia does not mean he has zero interest in women nor is anywhere in the play said that he is sexually into men.
All "scholarship" on the issue is literally interpreting him as gay because it suits their agenda. Exactly what I was talking about in my original post. Trying to make him gay just to make him gay.
Like another anon said. The play is an examination on death. I would even agree with you if you had said Hamlet has no gender. That it could be played ambiguously. The character isn't gay.
>>7938591
It is an insulting attempt to erase the notion of male friendship and nothing more.
See also Knausgård's treatment in the swedish press.
>>7938596
You are like a little baby.
"Whether or not you takeShakespeare's sonnetsas biographical evidence of an actual homosexual affair, they clearly present a vividly imagined portrait of a poetnamed Will's ardent infatuation with a young man with “a woman’s face” whom he calls “the master mistress of my passion.”"
http://www.myrlinhermes.com/2010/01/was-hamlet-gay-textual-evidence.html?m=1
Sonnet in question: http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/136
Have you even read either of these links? Clearly not because if you had you would still hold these outdated ideas of yours. The evidence is right there man, I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of the mental acrobatics you must preform to avoid them.
>all these paranoid /pol/fags trying to deny any homosexuality in muh classics
You guys are all losers who haven't even read Sonnet 20.
>>7938605
the line isn't that simple. what about ishmael and queequeg in moby dick?
>>7938626
>>7938628
Oh please. Yes everyone who doesn't think Shakespeare was gay because of a few of his sonnets is automatically a national socialist racist homophobe from /pol/. This is the state of modern education.
Please, anon. Try harder in whatever it is you call your "scholarship" and not just spew back the memes you're told. Try, just once, try thinking for yourself.
The sonnets in question can just as easily be explained that they were written out of respect and admiration for Shakespeare's first true patron that enabled him to have some success in his young career as they could by automatically saying, "oh willy shakes was definitely a poof!" It's known that Shakespeare's first patron was a young, very good looking noble.
Pardon me for not believing that a catholic, who named his greatest and most complex character after his only son, who died at age 11, would make the central character of one of the greatest and most complex examinations of the internal ruminations on life and death, a queer.
You're right. Makes total sense.
>>7938315
Come on, those sonnets are gay as fuck. You know exactly which ones I mean.
He was probably bi and agnostic, but that doesn't really fit anyone's identity politics.
>brought in old friends Hamlet used to have sex with
?????
what? literally zero evidence for this
>>7938707
I tend to think Chesterton's arguments for Shakespeare being Catholic are persuasive. It perfectly accommodates him being somewhat weird sexually. Catholics are weird.
>>7938707
It's kinda sad how /lit/ can perform mental gymnastics to avert their eyes from the truth. I just hope 60 years from now no-one will question that the collaborative group of Mulattas known as Shykespir were most assuredly andro-presenting gynephiles.
>>7938630
Ishmael and Queequeg are a one-sided homosexual relationship. Queequeg does want to bone Ishmael. Ishmael is horribly naive and does not realize what Queequeg wants, because Ishmael is the ultimate virgin eye.
I mean, fuck, Ishmael is barely even a character in Moby-Dick. He exists purely to observe. The only reason Queequeg is attracted to Ishmael is so Ishmael can log yet another observation about the human condition. It's like Ishmael is a robot, a probe. He's provoking a response in his permissiveness.
>>7938727
>appealing to personal incredulity, bandwaggon, and a touch of ad hominem
>>7938693
Sonnet 20 isn't exactly gay "thy love's use their treasure," but it's not exactly straight.
>>7938713
HAMLET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?
ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.
GUILDENSTERN
Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.
HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENCRANTZ
Neither, my lord.
HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of
her favours?
GUILDENSTERN
'Faith, her privates we.
HAMLET
In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she
is a strumpet. What's the news?
Hamlet directly compares them to a woman's private parts.
>>7938626
You realise this hardly counts as irrefutable evidence.
>>7938736
I was making a joke via absurdism.
There was no personal slight intended, but it appears I need to refine my comedy before shitposting again.
Was hal incandenza gay too then?
>>7938727
Just the total hypocrisy here is astounding, where the writer of sonnet 20, who pretty explicitly states how he wishes his patron was him but a woman, basically "if only you had a cunt so I could fuck you", strikes you as such a complete heterosexual that anyone who says "hmmm" is equivalent to the abominable feminist and queer literary theorists that have unfortunately dominated academia, but you're so upset that one might suggest you visit the /pol/.
>>7938741
Refute it then.
>>7938295
>'most of you would say "Of course he was gay!"'
?
He's just an reflective minor-beta having a breakdown. Overall he may seem less outwardly masculine than the others but it doesn't mean he's gay, if that even matters.
>>7938761
No, you're still misunderstanding. Of course you can question, "hmm," but I can also say, "hmm no."
It's this automatic jumping to conclusion assumptions that he was definitely, unequivocally, inarguably gay.
Take what you quoted, for example. You could also read that as a friend saying to a friend, in a modern, frat boy, joking manner, "holy shit, bro, I love you so much I could fuck you. We should totally bang, bro."
Shakespeare wasn't serious all the time. Especially when he was younger. Like other guy linked above, sonnet 136. Where he essentially says to the lady, "Listen, you love dicks. I know it. You know it. I don't care how many dicks you want to cram up your pussy, I just want my dick to be one of those dicks. Now let's fuck."
>>7938693
I bet you're going to try to tell me next that the Greeks weren't homosexual pedophiles. If you read Hamlet through a heterosexual lens then it makes no sense whatsoever. Why didn't he kill Claudius with all the opportunities he had? Why was he so hateful to Ophelia? And why so cruel to his own mother?
I'll tell you exactly why. He was sexually attracted to Claudius. Yes, I said it. It explains why he was so hesitant to kill him. It also explains his behavior towards his mother, who he was jealous of because she was sleeping with Claudius, and also because he was simply disgusted with the opposite sex. This is also true with Ophelia. He had been courting her earlier, perhaps simply to hide his homo-ness, but had finally had enough of her and others of her sex.
Hamlet's father had spent much of Hamlet's youth away at war, leaving him with the court jester Yorick as a father figure. There is reason to believe that Yorick may have molested or at least somehow sexually abused Hamlet as a child, "Here hung those lips that I kissed I know not oft." Plain as day.
And of course his relationship with Horatio needn't going into as the homosexual overtones are so obvious.
Poor Liberals, they want Shakespeare to be gay so hard despite all the contrary evidence.
>>7938808
I'm not going to tell you the Greeks weren't homosexual pedophiles (but I would say that it was different than it's portrayed currently, but that's a whole different discussion, altogether, that we can have another time).
Reading Hamlet through a hetero lens makes sense completely.
>Why so cruel to his own mother?
Uh...gee...I don't know...MAYBE BECAUSE SHE MARRIED HIS UNCLE AFTER HIS UNCLE MURDERED HIS FATHER?! I mean, Jesus Christ...
>Why was he so hateful to Ophelia? Why was he simply disgusted with the opposite sex?
Again, because he's a young man who just lost his fuckin' father and he suspects his own mother is a backstabbing cunt, maybe? Hell, Hamlet is /pol/. Hamlet ages like 15 years in the play. He's in his teens at the start and progresses to around 30.
>He was sexually attracted to Claudius. Yes, I said it.
Dude, you can't be serious with this.
>Yorick may have molested or at least somehow sexually abused Hamlet as a child...
Why? Why the fuck does one line make you immediately think Yorick sexually abused Hamlet? I'll tell you why. Because you've lost your mind. You've lost your perspective of life, just like much of academia, and you're parroting this bullshit back.
What you don't do is go on and quote what he's thinking about. He goes on to ask Horatio, while staring at the skull, "Do you think even Alexander the Great looks like this now dead? That he smells like this? Peeeeyuuuuu!"
Yorick was Hamlet's favorite court jester. The whole play is about death and despair and life and questioning existence and Yorick, poor Yorick, was one of the only things he can remember that made him laugh. That made him happy. Yes, when he was a kid, Yorick gave him piggy back rides and they played together and probably showed affection as any sane adult shows a child. Particularly a father figure. In that scene, he compares the dead Yorick, a lowly court jester but to whom he had great love for, who he personally knows and considers a truly great man to Alexander, who everyone universally considers as great, even though he never knew him, and how their two lives were so different, and yet, they look and smell the same in death.
But no. I'm sure you're right. He was definitely molested by Yorick and was sexually attracted to the man who killed his father and is fucking his mother almost immediately after his father's death.
Life is so simple for you God damned retards.
>>7938740
er no that's not how you readi t at all. hamlet was insinuating they're busy having sex with women, guildenstern is the one who makes the private line, which hamlet then runs with to further his "you're fucking Lady Fortune [whores]" joke. hamlet never initiates a comparison with the women's privates.
>>7938909
Good post, pal
>EVERYONE WAS A FAGGOT YOU BIGOT
>>7938950
Don't bother, anon. These people have never done any critical thinking in their life. They're "interested" in literature because of the aesthetic and they'll parrot whatever is told them that fits their narrative. They're just in it because of how they think it makes them look.
Embarrassing, tbqhwyf.
>>7938808
He didnt kill Claudius when he was praying because he thought that that would enable Claudius to go straight to heaven
>>7939052
That's what he told himself in order justify his hesitation. Most will agree to that. Now the reason for the hesitation may be debated, you may go the Harold bloom route and say that Claudius wasn't "a mighty opposite" matched enough for hamlets enormous consciousness (or whatever the Fuck Harold meant, I didn't really understand him), or the retarded "Hamlet gay for Claudius" route.
>>7938693
>getting this assblasted that someone thinks shakespeare might have had even just a little bit of the gay
>>7938909
Well, you sure beat me in those points, I must admit, but you still haven't refuted the Horatio theory. You must admit I have you there.
"Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself"
Hamlet was speaking of Horatio there. I don't mean to be homophobic (I am actually very anti-homophobic and love all gay's), but that's gay as Fuck.
>>7939125
Found the gay jew. Good work, boys. Bag him and tag him.
>tfw Shakespeare and Milton are no longer required courses at my uni because the administration decided that the curriculum had too many "old white men"
>>7939141
>modern culture is so cucked and homophobic that a man can't express non-erotic friendship without being labeled as gay
wew
>>7939164
But Shakespeare is a queer woman of colour, have you not been reading the thread?
>>7939173
Give me some textual evidence. If you fail to do so, I will declare myself as the winner of this argument.
>>7939190
textual evidence of what? hamlet praised his friend . that's it. idk where you got the idea they were rubbing dicks from those three lines.
if you want a longer explanation horatio occupies the position of "rational observer," or the closest to it, we get in this tragedy. his job is to see and observe and be calm and collected and take things as they come in stride - all qualities hamlet praises him for - and report hamlet's tale following the conclusion of the events here.
here's no fear shakespeare cause it seems like you need it. http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_154.html
>>7939141
>Well, you sure beat me in those points, I must admit, but you still haven't refuted the Horatio theory. You must admit I have you there.
>"Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
>And could of men distinguish, her election
>Hath seal'd thee for herself"
>Hamlet was speaking of Horatio there. I don't mean to be homophobic (I am actually very anti-homophobic and love all gay's), but that's gay as Fuck.
Again, you're cherry picking shit you're reading on the internet. You're pulling the quotes out from the context. In this case, you're pulling lines where he even explains what that means.
You're doing 1 of three things right now. Shitposting/trolling (of which I'm certain you'll use as the excuse), have never actually read Hamlet or done any Shakespeare scholarship and are just trying to seem smart on the internet, or you're absolutely retarded with no hope for redemption. I take that back. There's a fourth option in that you've been seduced by absolutely retarded Shakespeare scholarship trying to push an agenda with no hope for redemption and you're a lost boy, confused and alone in a cruel world for retards. I think this is the most likely option, evidenced by your persistence that I read these >>7938626.
In that speech, where Hamlet says the lines you quoted, he's telling his friend Horatio that he's the best and most honorable friend he's ever had. That he trusts him implicitly. And since he trusts him implicitly and believes Horatio a person with great integrity, he tells him that in the play to be performed for Claudius, there is a scene that depicts the circumstances of his father's death. He wants him to watch Claudius carefully and to give him an honest assessment of how he thinks Claudius reacts to the play.
Listen, anon. If you're not trolling/shitposting/actually retarded, you have to stop trying to pretend you're smart on the internet and pretending you're intelligent in real life. You have to put in the work and do the actual reading. People on the internet, like what you listed above, are honest to God retarded, and just parroting shit that they were taught by some Marxist Jew to bring down the legacy of the West. You have to stop. I implore you. Be better than that.
>>7939185
It's 2016 come on.
>>7939164
Drop out of that uni. I'm not kidding.
>>7938315
>Among us Germans, the so-called higher criticism has seized hold not only of philology in general but of historical literature. This higher criticism has supposedly justified the introduction of all the unhistorical abortions of an empty imagination. This is the other means of achieving "reality" in history: that is, by putting subjective notions in place of historical data. The bolder these notions are- i.e., the scantier the evidence on which they rest, and the more they contradict the most definite facts of history- the more excellent they are taken to be.
>>7939227
I already graduated and my year was the last one to have to take Milton and Shakespeare.
>>7939248
Like a teardrop in the rain. . .
>>7939248
>Wasn't he criticizing the French here?
he said that the French were good at writing this type of critical history, and he expresses great respect for French (and English) historians in general. He complains that in Germany no decent attempt at reflective history had been made because Germans lacked a strong/unified national experience and national character. Instead it was one guy after the next presenting their own hollow "critical" view of German history colored according to his own worldview.
>>7939209
>>7939204
Perhaps you are correct in the case of Hamlet, but I must ask you, and I ask you this in earnest, is there no hints of homosexuality on any level in any of Shakespeare's work? I mean, he touched upon most of what makes up the human experience, how could he have skipped even hinting at homosexuality? Sincerely curious.
>>7939266
Ah. I don't have much experience with Hegel. I'll look into him more.
>>7939277
Well it isn't that difficult when his opponent is probably just either a troll, or retarded.
>>7939270
>is there no hints of homosexuality on any level in any of Shakespeare's work? I mean, he touched upon most of what makes up the human experience, how could he have skipped even hinting at homosexuality? Sincerely curious.
I'll give you an answer. Hang on, it's gonna take a sec.
>>7938295
"subtext" as we know it didn't come into fashion in the dramatic form until strindberg and ibsen.
>>7939270
Maybe he wasn't a homosexual so he didn't talk about it.
>>7939339
What a bigot
>>7939270
>I mean, he touched upon most of what makes up the human experience, how could he have skipped even hinting at homosexuality?
All right, first thing we have to do, is get this thought out of your head that there's no way a writer could write about homosexuality without actually experiencing it. To be clear, this isn't your fault. There are many critics out there, some who are taken very seriously in our modern world, who actually believe this. You're not alone. This is not all your fault.
So let's begin, shall we?
First, let me ask you, do you think the greatest writer in the history of the English language, one of the true geniuses for all time, would not acknowledge or know that homosexuality existed in the world? Of course he wrote about it. That's the silliest argument ever "proving" that Shakespeare was for sure, definitely, absolutely, 100% gay. This is a genius! For all time, man! That doesn't mean he was gay. It'd be as silly to ask Shakespeare, living in his time, if there were homosexuals as it would be to ask anyone living today if homosexuals exist in the world. It's a foolish question. Further, Shakespeare wouldn't be a true genius artist of all time (and neither would anyone living today), if he weren't able to acknowledge all aspects of the human condition, including homosexuality.
Where you, and many others, get confused is they get lost in turning the critical lens they've used of the last century and into this one, and reapply it to Shakespeare's time. Repurposed to a different era. Literature has changed, many times over, since Shakespeare roamed the English countryside. Literature and literary criticism has changed. Consequently, authors adapted their writing styles along with these changes and they adapted the way they conducted interviews, they adapted the way they approached their work, and even the way they talked about their work. That's okay. This is the story of literature. Like life, it changes. We live in a world that is post-new school journalism and gonzo journalism and beat writers and on and on and this philosophy is now entrenched that a writer MUST have had true life experience for something to be authentic and genuine and, nowadays, the metaphorical "Author" and every word authors ever write has to have a "place it came from." This is not to say this is untrue for Shakespeare's work, but this is foolish to apply a total dissection of his private life, because of 5 lines he wrote somewhere in one of the 850,000 or so total words he wrote. I argue it's foolish to do today, also, but that's a different discussion also.
The real problem is this position has become so pervasive I fear it will never die.
Okay, so we've established that simply because the greatest writer who ever lived and, who you admit, touched on what makes up most of human experience, wrote about or of homosexuality, it doesn't mean that he himself was homosexual and that that thought is just dumb, dumb, dumb, correct?
Shakespeare was a little black girl, not a gay white male. That doesn't change the fact that most of his characters were gay.
Also; Patroclus and Achilles were definitely gay. Homer herself was fascinated by male sexual relations. Although back then, alot of male soldiers would have sex to strengthen eachothers bonds on the battlefield, not really "gay", because you wouldn't penetrate the anus, but for example they would make a "hole" by putting their feet together and have sex with that. These personal relationships would increase empathy and love for fellow soldiers on the battlefield but didn't mean you necessarily preferred men to women.
Think back to boarding school or alot of private societies in universities. You probably did sexual things with other men who didn't necessarily prefer men over women, but wanted to experience something thrilling or different, or it was fueled by dominance and not sexuality.
I haven't seen the purported textual evidence but Hamlet was a neurotic beta wimp so he may very well have been gay. This doesn't add anything to the actual play though, it's just another way for Buzzfeed enthusiasts to jack themselves off to identity politics.
>>7938305
Whoa
>>7938750
noice
>>7939537
anachronisms abound
>>7938315
You've definitely been on /pol/ way too much. There's no solid textual evidence to say that Hamlet was gay -- simply the details that his relationship with Gertrude is a little too close (see the Olivier film for more exploration of this), he speaks misogynistically to Ophelia, and he has one close, steady male friend. But Shakespeare is another matter. There's no doubt at all that there's a great deal of interest in gender play and cross-dressing in the plays. Antonio in The Merchant of Venice seems fairly clearly to be gay. And then there are the sonnets -- the first 126 of them are addressed to a "fair youth" (when an addressee is specified). Sonnet 20 in particular is worth a close like, with "the master-mistress of my passion." I think we can say confidently that from this content that its author was not a homophobe. Furthermore, I think it's plausible to say that the author was at least open to some of the possible themes and ideas addressed in this writing, especially in the sonnets. There's also the matter of the dedication to the sonnets and to the long narrative poems. Plus there's the detail of Shakespeare being married with three kids, though this is confused a little by the detail in his will leaving his "second-best bed" to his wife.
I work professionally with this stuff. I think at the least it's justifiable to say that Shakespeare was a little queer.
>>7938547
Was it not an idea bandied about by the Athenians?
It's pretty silly in either case.
>>7940725
>I work professionally with this stuff
>cites the "second-best bed" shit
want to know how I know you're lying?
>>7940783
Please do enlighten me!
>>7940725
>I work professionally with this stuff. I think at the least it's justifiable to say that Shakespeare was a little queer.
You're a fucking liar. This anon >>7940783 is right.
And if, by some magical stroke of fate, you're able to prove that you do, indeed, work professionally with this stuff, please let me know who in God's forsaken name is paying you real life money to do this work so I can apply and, hopefully, get you removed from your position, because you are less than piss poor at whatever this magical job is you apparently do and don't deserve to be in this profession.
>>7940842
It's not that hard to work professionally with Shakespeare. Almost every English department has at least one Shakespeare specialist. It means there are a few hundred of them in North America. And then there are the theater companies and librarian archivist positions (like at the Folger or the Huntington). Just go to grad school, work hard, publish stuff, and get yourself a job.
What's your objection to the statement you cite?
>>7940725
>>7940866
I've stated my objections all through the whole thread.
>There's no doubt at all that there's a great deal of interest in gender play and cross-dressing in the plays. Antonio in The Merchant of Venice seems fairly clearly to be gay.
This is zero, and I mean absolutely abyssal, no decimal point zero, to suggest that Shakespeare himself was gay and I would question, not only the credentials of any person who actually made this statement, I'd certainly and unhesitatingly question the credentials of someone who claimed to be a "scholar" who made that statement and I'd question their brain capacity. Shakespeare is a dramatist. A dramatist. He is a writer who touches on all aspects of life and was working in a time when "subtext" and "hidden meaning" and "what was really going on underneath it all" was not nearly as pervasive as it was today. He was writing life. Like I said above, to suggest that Shakespeare would only include homosexuals in his work because he was a homosexual himself is insulting to any writer, let alone a writer on the level of Shakespeare.
>And then there are the sonnets -- the first 126 of them are addressed to a "fair youth" (when an addressee is specified). Sonnet 20 in particular is worth a close like, with "the master-mistress of my passion." I think we can say confidently that from this content that its author was not a homophobe.
Who said anything about Shakespeare being a homophobe? No where in this thread have I said that Shakespeare was a homophobe. No where.
>Furthermore, I think it's plausible to say that the author was at least open to some of the possible themes and ideas addressed in this writing, especially in the sonnets. There's also the matter of the dedication to the sonnets and to the long narrative poems.
If we really want to get into the sonnets and the questions surrounding why it can be argued that they weren't written to "Shakespeare's mysterious gay lover," we can get into it, but it's going to take a while. I can't go through it all in just this reply.
>Plus there's the detail of Shakespeare being married with three kids, though this is confused a little by the detail in his will leaving his "second-best bed" to his wife.
This is the most glaring statement that this person has no idea what they're talking about. Citing something like this is literally not even Shakespeare 101.
>I work professionally with this stuff. I think at the least it's justifiable to say that Shakespeare was a little queer.
No. They fucking don't. They're just people telling lies on the internet.
>>7938295
>blatant references to Hamlet loving Ophelia throughout the play
>obvious to the keenest intellect on the slightest reflection that Ophelia is the semiotic light and love of Hamlets life and meant to contrast the black pit of revenge that is the psychological poison of the Ghost
>Two men can't share a bond of homosocial fraternity without twelve fanfics about their tender yet explosive thrusts reverberating through the halls of eternity being written by the terminally insecure champions of identity politicsConsidering it's algebraically provable that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father I doubt he's gay.
>caring about the writer's intention
>believing that a single definitive interpretation exists
kek who gives a shit
>>7940950
>Not wanting to argue and debate one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, pieces of literature ever written.
Why are you even here?
>>7940925
I agree with you that there isn't any solid evidence that Shakespeare was gay. There are some recurring thematic concerns in his writing and one of them is the way that gender gets staged and another is how there's something confusedly magical about desire. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that when a writer repeatedly brings up certain ideas, they might be open to those ideas in their own life. But I wouldn't draw any particularly solid conclusion from this. Biocriticism is a tenuous enterprise.
I'd be happy to listen to what you have to say about the sonnets. I'm inclined to read them as a highly ficitonal, interlinked narrative with at least four significant personae (the fair youth, the dark lady, the rival poet, and the speaker). To me, the speaker is obviously a writer, but doesn't share all the attributes of Shakespeare -- the speaker is too anxious, modest, and self-deprecating. The speaker also seem to have had intimate experience of syphilis ("a dateless lively heat" with "no cure"). What is true is that the first group of sonnets through to 126 seem to be addressed by a male speaker to a young male addressee and at times using intensely romantic language and imagery ("though art more lovely and more temperate").
I still don't get the problem you have with the "second-best bed." It's a notorious crux that has puzzled all biographers. Personally, I think that an identification of being "a little queer" is useful, since it doesn't claim "Shakespeare loved butt sex!" but does at least indicate that in his writing there's a recurrent concern with forms of gender identity and sexuality that aren't completely straight. What to me is really interesting is how vociferously some people feel the need to argue for Shakespeare's straightness. Why do you think it's so important to you that Shakespeare be seen as a CIS straight male?
>>7940962
>implying you can formulate, support and defend a coherent argument for a complex literary interpretation on 4chan, of all places
So far, it looks like this 'discussion' has been a shit flinging contest between /pol/tards and liberals- an extension of the SJW/anti-SJW conflict that pervades this website.
This is not a debate about literature, it's just another mindless soapboxing contest about internet politics
>>7940976
>I still don't get the problem you have with the "second-best bed." It's a notorious crux that has puzzled all biographers
no it's not. it's meme trivia that gets trotted out on the likes of r/TIL, cracked, and buzzfeed articles.
there is zero chance you work professionally with shakespeare - unless you're horribly stretching this definition - if you don't understand this point.
>>7940985
Thanks for clarifying. I don't enter enough cracked or buzzfeed threads to know that's a meme. Now I know it's a meme! The second-best bed does get some good discussion in Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Live (still an essential reference) and Greenblatt's Will in the World, for instance. I don't know why you'd doubt my credentials, other than that you really, really want Shakespeare to be 100 percent straight and would like to discredit anyone who suggests otherwise, particular if they use evidence.
>>7940976
>I agree with you that there isn't any solid evidence that Shakespeare was gay. There are some recurring thematic concerns in his writing and one of them is the way that gender gets staged and another is how there's something confusedly magical about desire. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that when a writer repeatedly brings up certain ideas, they might be open to those ideas in their own life. But I wouldn't draw any particularly solid conclusion from this. Biocriticism is a tenuous enterprise.
>I'd be happy to listen to what you have to say about the sonnets. I'm inclined to read them as a highly ficitonal, interlinked narrative with at least four significant personae (the fair youth, the dark lady, the rival poet, and the speaker). To me, the speaker is obviously a writer, but doesn't share all the attributes of Shakespeare -- the speaker is too anxious, modest, and self-deprecating. The speaker also seem to have had intimate experience of syphilis ("a dateless lively heat" with "no cure"). What is true is that the first group of sonnets through to 126 seem to be addressed by a male speaker to a young male addressee and at times using intensely romantic language and imagery ("though art more lovely and more temperate").
I'll cool off. You're not completely irredeemable.
>I still don't get the problem you have with the "second-best bed." It's a notorious crux that has puzzled all biographers. Personally, I think that an identification of being "a little queer" is useful, since it doesn't claim "Shakespeare loved butt sex!" but does at least indicate that in his writing there's a recurrent concern with forms of gender identity and sexuality that aren't completely straight. What to me is really interesting is how vociferously some people feel the need to argue for Shakespeare's straightness. Why do you think it's so important to you that Shakespeare be seen as a CIS straight male?
See, your first two paragraphs you sound like you'd actually put more than basic thought into your own reading, and then you go and bring up the bed again. You gotta forget the bed. It's a really, really, really bad argument and indicates you don't know anything about Shakespeare or his era. That's part of the reason why I reacted so hard. Forget the second best bed thing. It's not a notorious crux that's puzzled anyone. It's only something people pushing the gay cite to defend their dumb argument.
As for your last two questions, it's important because it's a reflection on the state of modern scholarship. It's pushing this narrative that there's no way a straight, white male could have written the things he did if he weren't a little gender fluid and sexually curious. It's the same problem I have with the authorship debate (I fight that all the time, too). Shakespeare was completely straight. That's okay. Why is it so important to put Shakespeare's gender identity and sexuality in question? Because it's wrong. Do you see what I'm saying?
>>7941045
Even if the second-best bed has turned into a meme, it's still an important biographical detail that needs some interpretation and explanation when telling the story of Shakespeare's life. The obvious issue is the weirdness of Shakespeare getting married so young to someone eight years older, and then going missing in the "lost years" (most likely working as a private tutor further north in Lancashire), and then showing up in London theaters in the early 1590s and staying there. It raises the obvious question of what sort of relationship he had with his wife and children back in Stratford. It's been discussed by just about every Shakespeare biographer since Nicholas Rowe. It seems you don't like this detail because it lends some support to the idea that Shakespeare's personal life might not have been completely orthodox. This dislike prompts you again to more ad hominem attack. I've read a couple of dozen Shakespeare biographies, so am far from the know-nothing you seek to suggest.
Thanks for answering why you want Shakespeare to be so straight. I see it's a culture-wars battle that you're fighting. I think you're wrong to say "he was completely straight" simply because we don't have enough evidence to say that definitively. He might have been straight, but he didn't leave a statement to that effect. He might have been a believing Protestant or a recusant Catholic or an atheist, but again we don't have statements to confirm or deny any of these. Mostly what we have is the plays, and I'm cautious about how much we can extrapolate about the author from his fictional writing. However, what's even more revealing is what people do with the story of Shakespeare. For you, this is clearly about trying to keep the world quite straight and to resist what you seem to think as an encroachment on straight male whiteness (it's interesting both that you use the verb "push" for this encroachment and that you keep mentioning whiteness in a discussion of sexuality). There's something strangely overemphatic in your denials: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
"Hamlet is gay" and "Hamlet is straight" are equally true, since Hamlet isn't a real person.
>>7941167
The worst post in the thread
>>7938295
I like how their logic and reasoning for Hamlet being gay is that he is an insecure and anxious about sex and women so suddenly he has to be gay.
>>7938315
Hey at least they have Leonardo da Vinci. And a lot of Greeks.
Hamlet is a fucking character - exactly bounded by the content of his speeches and Shakespeares stage directions. He serves a dramatic purpose. His previous enamourement with Ophelia only highlights his present distraction because it was genuine, and the audience never doubt this. When are you fucks gonna stop ignoring the play for the character. Go read T.S. Elliot on Hamlet. And I also don't think its reasonable to make draw any conclusions about Shakespeares sexuality from his plays.
>>7941140
>Even if the second-best bed has turned into a meme, it's still an important biographical detail that needs some interpretation and explanation when telling the story of Shakespeare's life. The obvious issue is the weirdness of Shakespeare getting married so young to someone eight years older, and then going missing in the "lost years" (most likely working as a private tutor further north in Lancashire), and then showing up in London theaters in the early 1590s and staying there. It raises the obvious question of what sort of relationship he had with his wife and children back in Stratford. It's been discussed by just about every Shakespeare biographer since Nicholas Rowe. It seems you don't like this detail because it lends some support to the idea that Shakespeare's personal life might not have been completely orthodox. This dislike prompts you again to more ad hominem attack. I've read a couple of dozen Shakespeare biographies, so am far from the know-nothing you seek to suggest.
I'm saying if that's what the biographers you're reading are suggesting than you're reading bad biographers. Biographers that are inserting their own agenda or just including something to play off the controversy. There was no ill will or confusion about Shakespeare and his wife or his family. The only time period where we're unsure of where Shakespeare was or what he was doing are the "lost years."
It's not weird he married Hathaway at 18 and her 26 at all. In fact, a guy spitting game like Shakespeare and horned up and ready to go could land an older woman easily. He worked in London to make money while his family lived in the suburbs. Anne and the kids lived with her parents while he saved up money. He doesn't just stay in London and never go back. Stratford wasn't like some epic, oceanic journey away. His son died in 1596 and Shakespeare bought the second biggest house in Stratford in 1597, which he lists as his official residence in 1598. This is all public record. He buys another house there in the early 1600's. His first daughter married a distinguished doctor there and his second daughter a vintner. His first daughter's husband and he are great friends and they do business together. They travel to and from London together. This is all public record. His second daughter names their first born after him. This is not a family who hates daddy. When Anne dies, she demanded to be buried with William. As in, in his grave, with him she loved him so much. They decided to bury her next to him. His granddaughter buried her husband next to him, they had such respect for him. This is all public record. This is not a family who hates daddy.
This is what I'm talking about. Lit critics hate this. They want him to be some poor, damaged, queer soul. In their minds, there's just no way that a straight, white guy from the suburbs can be the greatest writer of all time. They can't accept it. It drives them crazy.
>>7941285
based anon continues BTFOing retard SJW troll
>>7941285
That's all helpfully laid out. And yes, biographers all have their agendas, including you. I look forward to your forthcoming book: Shakespeare: The Straight, White Guy from the Suburbs.
Shakespeare's life in Stratford did seem pretty nice. John Hall seems like an upstanding guy for a son-in-law and the family does seem close (though Shakespeare must've been hugely affected by the premature death of Hamnet -- and Greenblatt is strong on this detail and on Hamlet as a mourning play after this loss). But in London, things sound more messy. It took about two days to travel between Stratford and London. Shakespeare chose first to live in Bishopsgate, which was an immigrant area near Bedlam prison and with a growing Jewish population. It was one of the seeder parts of town, though was walking distance to the Theater. Then in 1599 after the Globe was built he moved south to Southwark -- an even seedier part of town near the Clink prison and the stews (brothels) and bear baiting. These places are definitely not "the suburbs" and were not particularly salubrious parts of London then. These are the kinds of places that a solo man looking for adventure would gravitate towards. When you mix in the (possibly) apocryphal story about how Shakespeare beat Burbage to an assignation with a woman (William the Conquerer came before Richard III), it starts to create a slightly seedy and indulgent picture. Add to it the story that Shakespeare died of alcohol-related causes and you start seeing a guy who most likely had a double life -- respectability back home and indulgence, creativity, and productivity in the city.
I can't straight off think of any respected biographers who argue that Shakespeare was clearly gay, but likewise I can't think of any who argue he was an ordinary straight guy in the suburbs.
Shakespeare doesn't even seemed to have liked the concept of "suburbs." In Julius Caesar when Portia is getting mad at her husband, she asks: "Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife." Suburbs here is used pejoratively and seems not to a desirable location.
>shakespeare wrote about some characters that may be gay, therefore he is gay
that's like saying
>shakespeare wrote about the king of england, he must be the king of england
(or, less hyperbolically, the completely fringe conspiracy theory of "shakespeare is a high profile nobleman of the court", take your pick from oxford/bacon/elizabeth etc. etc.)
it's an asinine leap of logic
>>7941372
ITT: conjecture, conjecture, conjecture.
This is a waste of time anyway - why do you care who Shakespeare the man was? Someone wrote good plays. And that's all you should need to know.
>>7941372
>Shakespeare: The Straight, White Guy from the Suburbs
This is...actually a great title. I'm sure I could sell like 100 copies on amazon. I've thought about it but, ultimately, decided against it under the thought that the world doesn't need yet another Shakespeare book. Lately, I've been reconsidering.
>Shakespeare chose first to live in Bishopsgate, which was an immigrant area near Bedlam prison and with a growing Jewish population. It was one of the seeder parts of town, though was walking distance to the Theater.
The Shakespeares were broke. His dad lost all his money. Where else would a young artist be able to afford to live in a city like London?
>Then in 1599 after the Globe was built he moved south to Southwark -- an even seedier part of town near the Clink prison and the stews (brothels) and bear baiting. These places are definitely not "the suburbs" and were not particularly salubrious parts of London then. These are the kinds of places that a solo man looking for adventure would gravitate towards. When you mix in the (possibly) apocryphal story about how Shakespeare beat Burbage to an assignation with a woman (William the Conquerer came before Richard III), it starts to create a slightly seedy and indulgent picture. Add to it the story that Shakespeare died of alcohol-related causes and you start seeing a guy who most likely had a double life -- respectability back home and indulgence, creativity, and productivity in the city.
I won't deny is within the realm of possibility. However, it's just as easy to think that he was living a double life in the seedy underbelly of London as it is to think that he just chose to live in London cheaply and save because he knew how quickly the money could be gone because of what happened to his father and his family's money. As for the alcoholism, it wouldn't surprise me that he indulged, even heavily, but that doesn't mean he was having seedy sex with queers - what the original question was about. Plus, twice during Shakespeares time in London, the city was hit by a huge outbreak of the plague (during the first of which he wrote the majority of the sonnets), so if anything his alcoholism could be partially attributed to drinking less water and more alcohol while he was staying in a plague infested, filthy London.
>I can't straight off think of any respected biographers who argue that Shakespeare was clearly gay, but likewise I can't think of any who argue he was an ordinary straight guy in the suburbs.
That's because they're either stupid and/or unwilling to have any balls and fucking say it.
>Shakespeare doesn't even seemed to have liked the concept of "suburbs." In Julius Caesar when Portia is getting mad at her husband, she asks: "Dwell I but in the suburbs
>Of your good pleasure? If it be no more
Again, 1 line...1 line out of all his work and he suddenly hates the suburbs?
>>7941453
>This is a waste of time anyway - why do you care who Shakespeare the man was? Someone wrote good plays. And that's all you should need to know.
Take your own advice and fuck off. Unkindly. I'm discussing the greatest writer in the English language on a board about literature. I don't know fuck all you're doing here.
Second stanza of Yeats poem lapis lazuli
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
>They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
>>7941372
>everyone who lives in the poorer part of town is gay
heard it here first lads.
>>7941453
New critics only want us to talk about "the words on the page." However, Shakespeare is probably the best writer ever and it's really fascinating to try to make sense of how on earth someone can be so good. What circumstances contributed to such brilliance? How did such a brilliant writer choose to live? How might something similar be reproduced in the future? I'm also a historical critic and find the wider stories about Shakespeare's context to be completely fascinating -- how the Lord Chamberlain's Men became the best acting company in history; how the Gunpowder Plot makes it into Macbeth; how a writer might shape a part he was reputed to have acted (like the Ghost in Hamlet). All this shit is endlessly interesting to me. And it keeps reconnecting the life and context of the person who produced the plays and poems with the interpretation of the works themselves.
>>7938315
the Jews
Stop
>>7941485
Please tell me you're joking.
>>7941517
Just saying, Yeats is likely smarter than all of you.
>>7938417
>Radiohead plays in the background
>>7941516
He's right, you know...
>>7938547
Well, that insult dates back to Plato then, back when it wasn't an insult. In Symposium it is assumed that Patroclus and Achilles were lovers, and participants in the symposium take this "fact" completely for granted, presumably because they assume the Homeric Greeks weren't that different from themselves. If this is the case, the reason Homer doesn't explicitly state that they are lovers is because it is so obvious. I think this is quite an assumption to make, but it's not unbelievable. If anything it serves as evidence of how much the current culture affects how we perceive ancient works.
>>7941140
One theory is that they reserved their best bed for visitors, so the second best bed would be the one they slept in.
>>7941524
Well then you can add yourself to the list of fucking retards who pretends they're smart on the internet. That's not what that poem is about at all. Which you'd know, if you had done anything more than a google search for something like, "famous poems where hamlet is gay," and then tried to pretend you were smart on the internet. But no, you settled for the former. Tsk tsk, anon. You need to learn to read and work hard. Otherwise you're nothing more than a fucking idiot.
>>7941530
There are essentially no qualitative statements generally applicable to 15 million people
Even "Jews don't like pork" is somewhat inaccurate, given the rarity of kosher adherence among Jews in the diaspora
>>7941541
Puhlease, anon. Who do you think you're talking to right now?
>>7941541
>There are essentially no qualitative statements generally applicable to 15 million people
Sure there is is:
"Women are subhuman"
>>7938295
why do you browse incognito?
My personal opinion is that Shakespeare might have jacked it to the boys dressed as women in his plays. It is just a suspicion though.
My parents check my computer history and I don't want them to see the kind of naughty sites I visit.
>bitcoin wisdom
>spontaneous combustion
underage detected
>>7941711
Dude you could have used full disk encryption when you installed mint. Or at least encrypted your home directory.
>>7941720
Note combustion but composition.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~marissaj/spontaneouscomplog.html
>>7941722
If I don't show them my history then they'll just take my computer away. Encryption wouldn't help.
>>7938295
Was Derrida influential?
It doesn't look like it
>>7938295
>mint
>chromium
>qBittorrent
>>7938417
what is pic from
>>7942327
Children of Men
>>7941487
If that sort of thing interests you, then I thats your thing, i suppose. But I don't think you can call shakespeare the greatest english writer and similtaneously suggest his works can be interpreted best in light of biographical facts and conjectures. The work of a good artist is not necessarily a reflection of any part of his personality. And I'm not arguing for a purely 'words on the page' approach - a history of the literature on Shakespeares time and culture could be valuable. And historical facts do elucidate certain parts of older texts. But I don't think Shakespeare plays were written to suit his own personality. There's no one who is interesting enough to match the content of those plays. I think he wrote great drama because he didn't limit himself to his own character, but rather was a conduit for superior artistry.
>>7941482
I'm aiming to discuss the greatest literature in the english language on this literature board, not the authors. You can tell /lit/ is full of complex ridden juveniles when every thread is about the author of a work rather than their art.
>>7942282
You have a problem with based qB? All other torrent clients are spooks.
