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 Barbies 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 Hamlets 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 fathers 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 strugglingand failing to surmount insuperable cultural impediments to their love... Romeo and Juliet can remain in tragically romantic dire straights, even when its a girl-on-girl song, she said.
...
Cleopatra and Antony....
Loves Labors Lost.....
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
Or "The Lever and the Leavings: Indoor Plumbing and Ultimate Intimacy"
ROFL
It is pssible, although I cannot profess to having any particular knowledge of the subject.
I'm not a literature expert but I have heard that questions like that can be resolved by computer analysis of comparative word frequencies. Probably someone would have noticed if the plays and sonnets had a different author.
You're right. After I posted I realized that your comment could be taken a different way and my comment was mean. I agree that this type of historical footnote should have no influence on the appreciation of Shakespeare. Just re-reading the line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" one can see this man's genius and it doesn't really matter whom he was addressing.
On the other hand it should not be necessary to lie about the past and make it fit some ideal that does not accord with the known facts.
I don't even know that much about literature. I was a math major. But I knew I was right about this. Shakespeare lived so long ago that most of the facts of his life are a mystery. But his writing is there for all to see. One thing that is clear from this thread is that a lot of people who make dogmatic statements about Shakespeare's writing know even less about it than me.
The “College Profs” is a hoot. Thanks for posting the link.
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