Among the greatest writers of all time, the name William Shakespeare appears almost universally around the world. Shakespeare is not only an important part of British identity, but also serves as an important part of American identity. His plays have been analyzed, performed, and interpreted in countless ways throughout the years and he remains a staple in British and American culture. One of reasons he is so widely studied is that many of his themes are still applicable in today’s society. Among those themes is the issue of sexuality and sexual identity. In many of Shakespeare’s plays, one can see instances of homoeroticism and same sex relationships presented through dialogue, coded language and metaphor, and performance. Some of the strongest …show more content…
Even today, research concerning female sexuality is disappointingly lacking when compared with research done on male sexuality, and the same was true in the Elizabethan era as well. Though laws prohibited homosexual acts – they were primarily concerned with sodomy and nothing was said or discussed when it came to same sex relationships between women. Shakespeare too, is lacking in instances of homoeroticism between women, but one can glimpse a lesbian homoeroticism between Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night. In the play, Olivia falls in love with Viola who she thinks is Cesario, but it is mentioned many times that it is Viola’s androgyny which first holds the attraction for her. As Viola attempts to woo Olivia on behalf of Orsino, she ends up abandoning Orsino’s practiced script to come up with her own words and own methods of wooing Olivia. This creates a space of intimacy between the two women and allows them to speak of their desires with an understanding that could not happen between a man and a woman. In her article Glimpsing a “Lesbian Poetics” in Twelfth Night, Jami Ake argues that the language Viola uses in wooing Olivia speaks intimate understanding of female desire and creates a dialogue between the two women that cannot exist in any other space within the play. In talking about language, Ake talks extensively about the Petrarchan sonnet form – a form used frequently in the Elizabethan era by poets such as Wyatt and Surrey. These Petrarchan sonnets, as well as following a specific form, also follow a specific theme or plotline. They are always from the point of view of a lover – often a poet – and always have to do with a woman who is unattainable either because she is already married or because she will not be wooed by the speaker. This is precisely the form that Orsino uses to attempt to woo Olivia in
The play Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare is a 1601 comedy that has proven to be the source of experimentation in gender casting in the early twenty-first century due to its portrayal of gender in love and identity. The play centrally revolves around the love triangle between Orsino, Olivia, and Viola. However, Olivia and Orsino both believe Viola is a boy named Cesario. Ironically, only male actors were on the stage in Shakespeare’s time. This means that Olivia, Viola, and other female characters were played by young boys who still had voices at higher pitches than older males.
William Shakespeare is known for his masterful way of writing and using love and romance to strengthen his work. In his phenomenal romance comedy, Twelfth Night, Shakespeare redefines and mocks the idea of gender roles and the motifs of love. Shakespeare achieved this theme by using the main character, Viola, to give the readers the thought that the play’s intentions were to disrupt and throw out gender roles and present the concept of cross-dressing through Viola. Although this concept was a twist to the plot by itself, Shakespeare then uses Viola’s language and interaction with other characters to reaffirm stereotypes and expectations of her specified gender background.
During the seventeenth century when Shakespeare was writing this play, homosexuality was looked down upon by society. However, this does not mean that Shakespeare could not shed any humor into the subject of homoerotism in Twelfth Night or What You Will. It is evident that Shakespeare means to make fun of gender with his characters such as Orsino and Olivia falling in love with Cesario, not knowing that Cesario is actually a female. "As Orsino's proxy, Viola is sent to Olivia with love letters. Viola refuses to budge until she is let in to see Olivia" (Pressley). Earlier in the play, Viola while dressed as Cesario, ha...
Shakespeare repeatedly tackles sexuality within The Tragedy of Hamlet. Sexuality is important when establishing the reasons for Hamlet’s desires, mood swings, and his constant struggle with gender identity because sexuality is in the center of it all. For example, highlighted in act 3.4 Hamlet argues with his mother, Gertrude, over the content of the performance that Hamlet directed. Hamlet outright accuses his mother of being a whore and of being deceitful for marry her husband’s brother. However, Hamlet’s angry is much more deeply rooted because his acting out against Gertrude is not simply because of her betrayal and incest-like sexual desires, it is more or so because now he has to question himself and his
Sodomy and Buggery can then be seen as the main elements that are pivotal to my study in linking the subtle overtones/undertones of homoeroticism and homosexuality within a political and historical context and the blatant acceptance of these theatre practises/conventions. Essentially my aim of this study will shed light on how sodomy and buggery had an impact on Shakespeare work, especially As you like it. In the Elizabethan era, plays were written for male dominated casts (Bullion.2010:45). It can then be argue that there is irony, and to a certain degree a sense of absurdity in audience members blatantly accepting these theatre norms/conventions which contradicted their own culture and justice system of their own
In a romantic forest setting, rich with the songs of birds, the fragrance of fresh spring flowers, and the leafy hum of trees whistling in the wind, one young man courts another. A lady clings to her childhood friend with a desperate and erotic passion, and a girl is instantly captivated by a youth whose physical features are uncannily feminine. Oddly enough, the object of desire in each of these instances is the same person. In As You Like It, William Shakespeare explores the homoerotic possibilities of his many characters. At the resolution he establishes a tenuous re-affirmation of their heterosexuality. In this essay I will show how individual characters flirt with their homoerotic inclinations, and finally reject these impulses in favor of the traditional and socially accepted heterosexual lifestyle. I will explore male to male eroticism through the all-male court in the forest and through Orlando's attraction to Ganymede. I will inspect female to female attraction through Celia's attachment to Rosalind and through Phebe's instant attraction to the effeminate boy, Ganymede.
Throughout various mediums, queer and gender portrayals are not shown in the best light. Majority of media show clear negative connotations of homosexuals and queens while constantly being a target of discrimination and ridicule. Though as time went on many writers decided to speak up and gain awareness for queer and gender biases by incorporating messages of societal discrimination in their plays. Much of their ideals were that of how sexual/gender identity portrayal, lifestyle stigma, and preconceived notions of the homosexual community. These ideals were combined in what is called gender studies and queer literary theory. Some of these concepts and ideas of queer and gender theory can be seen throughout the play
Like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night revolves around the central theme of love by focusing on the interactions between characters. Two characters, Orsino and Olivia, are self-indulgent people too busy living in the melodrama of their emotions to relate to those around them. They become inconsiderate of the feelings of others. Orsino is so lovesick that he can think of nothing but Olivia while Olivia is so fixed upon grieving for her brother that nothing else matters to her. It is only when Viola, as Cesario, becomes part of their lives that they change.
It is well known that Shakespeare’s comedies contain many marriages, some arranged, some spontaneous. During Queen Elizabeth's time, it was considered foolish to marry for love. However, in Shakespeare’s plays, people often marry for love. With a closer look into two of his most famous plays As You Like It and Twelfth Night or What You Will, I found that while marriages are defined and approached differently in these two plays, Shakespeare’s attitudes toward love in both plays share similarities. The marriages in As You Like It’s conform to social expectation, while the marriages are more rebellious in Twelfth Night. Love, in both plays, was defined as
It is now clear that Shakespeare shows how there is more than one way to love, either loving a person or loving love itself in his play, Twelfth Night. Olivia burdens Cesario with information that she does not want to let him go because then she will not be able to look at him to feast her eyes. Orsino is rather proud that he knows how to love and enjoys sharing this piece of information to all of the people around him in the form of his moaning. Viola, differently, is having a hard time keeping in her love for Orsino and has to fight against her own disguise. All in all, Olivia, Orsino and Viola each have similarities and differences in the types of love they express. The characters are all having some extent of a hard time with their love (a conflict they overcome,) but they express their love in diverse ways to those around them.
The male-male friendship in Twelfth Night between Antonio and Sebastian is one that has caused speculation of homoerotic desire within the perspective of the modern audience today. The context in which the play was written was one where there was a lack of sexual identity and men were much more open about demonstrating their affection for their male friends, making the line between friendship and homoerotic male relationships nearly indistinguishable. This made the line between male platonic and homoerotic friendships very difficult to distinguish. Shakespeare seems to be playing with this blurred line, with the swapping of gender roles and close relationship between the two men. Moreover, the gender swapping is the play could be reflective
Throughout the period of the Shakespearean stage, there were many plays that led viewers and critics to question sexual identity and gender roles in not just his plays, but many other plays as well. For early modern England at this time, cross-dressing was looked at as a dramaturgical motif, a theatrical practice, and a social phenomenon. “In Shakespeare’s day, a cross-dressed heroine, like any female character also involved a gender switch in the world of the playhouse, for women’s roles were normally assigned to young male apprentices called play-boys” (Shapiro, 1). In each of Shakespeare’s five plays involving a cross-dressing heroine, he tried something different. He cleverly varied each motif in which each play turned out to have different reactions as well as outcomes. All of the heroines, Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Viola in Twelfth Night, all come from aristocratic and wealthy families, were well-educated and courageous enough to disguise themselves in order to enter the masculine world. “Adoption of disguise also implied the inevitability of undisguising, and with it the assurance that even the most assertive heroine, if she were to survive, would eventually resume her female identity and her place within a patriarchal society.” (Shapiro, 65) These cross-dressing heroines are alike through a number of aspects, their voice and costumes being most important. But they are all active and determined rather than passive and submissive, they show their intelligence and capabilities, and although they show their masculinity they still hold their female characteristics and qualities.
Emotions are among the most potent forces humanity has ever faced, and, as William Shakespeare emphasizes, love is one of the most influential emotions an individual can experience. Throughout Twelfth Night, Shakespeare focuses on one main characteristic about love that helps to solidify the strength of this emotion on the characters. He wants to reader to understand that love is one of the few forces that can instantaneously incapacitate and cripple human beings, yet it simultaneously wields the capacity to bestow the highest level of satisfaction within an individual.
Throughout Twelfth Night, disguise and mistaken identity works as a catalyst for confusion and disorder which consistently contributes towards the dramatic comic genre of the play. Many characters in Twelfth Night assume disguises, beginning with Viola, who disguises herself as a man in order to serve Orsino, the Duke. By dressing his protagonist in male garments, Shakespeare creates ongoing sexual confusion with characters, which include Olivia, Viola and Orsino, who create a ‘love triangle’ between them. Implicitly, there is homoerotic subtext here: Olivia is in love with a woman, despite believing her to be a man, and Orsino often comments on Cesario’s beauty, which implies that he is attracted to Viola even before her male disguise is removed. However, even subsequent to the revealing of Viola’s true identity, Orsino’s declares his love to Viola implying that he enjoys lengthening the pretence of Vio...
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is considered to be one of his greatest romantic comedies, and has been praised for his cunning and witty use of disguised identity. Taking place in a land known as Illyria, the romantic comedy centers around the protagonist, Viola, who disguises herself as a male for her safety after a shipwreck, in which she assumes her brother has died. While working in the house of Duke the Orsino under the name Caesario, she falls in love with him, and also wishes to win the affections of the Duke, who is desperately in love with the Countess Olivia. A number of love triangles form, which results in various forms of live being shown through each of the play’s main characters. Twelfth Night plays upon its main characters, showing them each as rather unsatisfactory lovers, with the exception of Viola, who is the embodiment of true love. Despite the fact that the play ends happily, each of the main characters find themselves feeling some sort of pain, and view love of as a type of curse. Many characters suffer from lovesickness, and also endure the pain of unrequited love. In this essay I will dissect each of the main characters in Twelfth Night as lovers, and explain why each of them is more absurd than the rest.