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
Harris, Bernice. "Sexuality as a Signifier for Power Relations: Using Lavinia, of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus" Critcism 38 (1996): 383-407.
This paper will look at the different conceptions highlighted by Bulman in his article through the use of different methods used by the actors in the play. Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare captures the different conceptions of gender identity and different sexualities within the Elizabethan period.
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
In the plays female sexuality is not expressed variously through courtship, pregnancy, childbearing, and remarriage, as it is in the period. Instead it is narrowly defined and contained by the conventions of Petrarchan love and cuckoldry. The first idealizes women as a catalyst to male virtue, insisting on their absolute purity. The second fears and mistrusts them for their (usually fantasized) infidelity, an infidelity that requires their actual or temporary elimination from the world of men, which then re-forms [sic] itself around the certainty of men’s shared victimization (Neely 127).
“...So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” So ends the famous Sonnet 18, possibly Shakespeare’s best-loved sonnet of all. Shakespeare’s fame today comes almost exclusively for his writing that deals with feelings of love. Sonnet 18. Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hamlet and Ophelia and Antipholus and Luciana and Beatrice and Benedick and Antony and Cleopatra. All these examples of the guy falling in love with the girl and skipping off into the sunset with her. However, new evidence shows that he wrote almost half of his sonnets to a man, including that oft-quoted “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” sonnet. As we look closer and closer at his cross-dressing, male-centric, “fabulous” plays, Shakespeare scholars argue that it’s very possible he swung the other way, or at least been an ally for those who did. Fast forward about four hundred years and we live in a thoroughly(though not yet quite totally) accepting society, with multiple organizations dedicated only to making LGBT kids feel safe in their own community, universally legal gay marriage undoubtedly coming up on the horizon, and non-gender-binary people winning major beauty-centric competitions. The very reason that so much research has been done on Shakespeare’s sexuality is that we accept so many in today’s modern, free spoken society. The majority of today’s society opens and accepts all, and I like to believe that the bard himself strove for a world like this. There are still a few people who still believe that their love-thy-neighbor religion does not apply to those who do not fit within the societal construct of a book written thousands of years ago, but people who have grown to love far overpowe...
The aim of this paper is to analyze the themes of love and sexuality in one of Shakespeare's most famous plays, Hamlet. As a playwright, Shakespeare depicted human nature profoundly, therefore, in Hamlet we may find as many kinds of love as the number of relationships that are described and intermingled. There is romantic love, paternal and maternal love, and friendship, which is love among people of the same rank, class or sex. The love present in some of these relationships is sometimes connected or overlapped with sexuality, even in cases where it is not expected to. In the following pages we will try to illustrate how two attributes which all human beings posses are shown and experienced by the characters in Hamlet.
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
Viola’s use of gender imitation serves a purpose to demonstrate how the power of love can be a method that undermine gender binarism and its importance. This brings forth the theory of the hermaphrodite, an individual possessing both male and female sexual organs or other sexual attributes. Charles argues that the theatrical convention of cross-dressing and the androgyny it comes to symbolize thus challenge the regulatory parameters of erotic attraction through the vehicle of performance, a performance that shows gender to be a part payable by any sex (Charles 126). Gender can be performed by any sex, either male or female. It is not perceived as being sexually nor does it affect the societal rules during the Elizabethan period. Charles argues that Shakespeare’s play arguably introduces patterns of homoerotic representation in order to disrupt that binarism and to show how gender identities that uphold such duality are staged, performed, and playable by either sex (Charles 129-130). Shakespeare 's play apparently presents examples of homoerotic representation keeping in mind the end goal to disturb that binarism and to show how sex personalities are maintained on stage. “… discussion of these cross-dressed performance is informed by Judith Butler’s influential notion of gender role is performative… the ‘masculine’ and the ‘feminine’ are no more than compulsory citations of sexual norms… provide an illusion of their own
In Twelfth Night, the character Viola, who cross-dresses as a man named Cesario, is used to show how true love is capable of breaking gender barriers. Viola is an amiable character who has no severe faults. The audience can clearly detect that Viola's love is the purest because unlike Orsino and Olivia, her character's love is not narcissistic and does not jump from one person to the next. In other words, her actions are motivated by deep and abiding passion rather than whimsical choices. Viola's main problem, however, throughout the play is one of identity. Because of her costume, she must be both herself and Cesario. Thi...
7. Kahn, Coppe`lia. Man's Estate: Masculinity Identity in Shakespeare. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1981.
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
Love however, is the source of much confusion and complication in another of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night. Men and women were seen as very different from each other at the time the play was written, they were therefore also treated in very different ways. Because of this Viola conceals her identity and adopts the role of a man, in order to better her safety whilst being alone on the island, and to get a job at Count Orsino’s court. In the play Shakespeare uses the gender confusion he has created from obscuring characters identities to explore the limits of female power and control within courtship, and their dominance within society. Violas frustration surrounding her inability to express her feelings to the Count because she is a woman is an example of the limiting rules of courtship which were upheld at the time. (Aside) ‘yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.’ Here she is already expressing her anxiety and emotion at being a woman, and having to keep her emotions hidden from those around her. She longs to be able to express her love as a man could, and in her disguise as Cesario she finds an opportunity to vent her feelings for the Count, but concealed as his words and towards Olivia. Viola is unaware of how her words may sound to Olivia because she is aware of their gender boundaries however Olivia isn’t and soon falls for Cesario. Because Olivia is a Lady and head of the household, and especially how she lacks a father figure, she has a lot more freedom in courtship. Duisinberre comments on this saying, ‘...Viola and Beatrice are women set free from their fathers, and their voice is that of the adult world.’ This is seen when Olivia immediately takes the dominant role in her and Cesarios relat...
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.
Viola's transvestism functions as emblematic of the antic nature of Illyrian society. As contemporary feminist and Shakespearean scholars are quick to point out, cross-dressing foregrounds not only the concept of role playing (a common practice during Twelfth Night revels) and thus the constructed or performative nature of gender but also the machinations of power. Viola can only make her way in this alien land if she assumes the trappings--and with these garments the--privileges of masculinity. Her doublet and hose act as her passport and provide her with a livelihood, a love interest, and friendship (just as Leonide's breeches allow her passage into Hermocrate's garden).