Dont worry, it is you and Chomsky. Even if he got a bit gaga, still a good company :DQuote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Dont worry, it is you and Chomsky. Even if he got a bit gaga, still a good company :DQuote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Oh my gosh, irony in action!
A heartfelt plea to my fellow Litnutters:
This thread, originally posted a year ago, was meant to spark a lively debate about the kind of criticism which veers away from assessing and appreciating literary works for their artistry and excellence.
Please, please do not circumvent the original intention of this thread by engaging in personal banter and political discussions.
Thank you.
Auntie
(original poster)
Was calling me a punk necessary? :lol: Probably an apt description, in any case.
I'm not going to fan the flames of this argument. I apologize for even starting it. Ironically, I agree with JBI's statements about Huck Finn. I'm tempted to do a purely narrative and aesthetic reading if I ever revisit it.
:iagree:Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Auntie, Nice job using your teacher skills to remind the children to stop throwing sand or they will have to leave the sandbox.
Oh my goodness! You are right, now I feel like an old biddy.:auto: whatever that is. I never meant to dis-respect your thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
On that note...Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
W a r n i n g
Please discuss the topic at hand; not each other.
Further off-topic comments will be removed without further notice
and
those who insist on making such posts will receive infraction points.
I'm not sure why you think opinions across America vary so widely, but they don't. They do a little, but we are still one nation, and someone from Claifornia is not some sort of foreigner to someone from Texas.
I'll give you California... but truly Texas is some other nation... if not planet... altogether.:lol:
It is not about size, it is about diversity. The level of diversity in America cannot be compared to the level of diversity found in a single country, it is far more akin to the diversity found on a continent.
Ummm... Alex... The United States IS a single country. Certainly there is a wide level of diversity... perhaps more than exists in many single European nations... as a result of the influx of immigrants from around the world. We have large populations of Asia, Black, Hispanic, etc... and these vary in scale and ratio from place to place. There are also differences resulting from climate and employment... but these certainly even exist in countries as relatively small as France. Major cultural/economic centers like Paris differ from major industrial towns, or mining towns... and these differ highly from the small farming towns or tourist towns on the Mediterranean. There is more difference here between the small town I grew up in and the urban city of Cleveland where I live than between Cleveland and Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Washington, or Atlanta (and yes... I have been to all of them... for greater of lesser spans of time).
Like what? Vatican sponsored what? That sounds like the most ignorant statement I've seen in a long time. What are you talking about that Christians do to women? Perhaps i should go check your age to see how young you are, but I might be shocked that you're actually an adult.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
More likely that he was gay? How do you come to that conclusion? He was married with children and in the over thousands of pages he wrote, there are about two lines from two sonnets that could possibly, possibly suggest he was gay.Quote:
Slow down cowboy. I agree it is sophistry to claim that William was gay or bi, but it is even more sophistry to claim he was not. There is evidence which suggests he was gay, and it would not be suprising considering that historicaly gay men are more prone towards artistic pursuits than not - as while only 8% of the male population is gay/bi when we look at the canon of art or music or literature the figure is much higher than 8% - nonetheless the only answer which does not sound stupid to my ears is that we don't know about his sexuality, even though from historic evidence it is more likely that he was bi or gay rather than simply straight.
Out of curiosity what impelled you to state that he was not gay? Was it just good old fashioned christian bigotry or was there some actual evidence you seem to have discovered and kept hidden from the scholarly world?
Have you even read Shakespeare? I'm not even going to bother with you. You're not worth my time.
Virgil, the theory of Shakespeare being homosexual is hardly anything new or much a fringe belief, yet you treat it as such.
I don't think Shakespeare is gay, but a gay reading of the sonnets is pretty much an enshrined cultural tradition, it was latched onto by gay readers in the late 19th century precisely because it was so obvious to them that there was something mildly homoerotic about the Fair Youth sonnets. However, the openness to homoerotic readings of the sonnets is not itself evidence of Shakespeare having same-sex attractions or that the sonnets are even intended to be homoerotic.
As to Christians endorsing violence against women, we could look at Hutterites or the Amish, who do require their women to stay in the home and cover everything but their face in public. Or to certain Mormon sects that endorse child marriages and unequal polygamous arrangements. There are also a number of Christian sects that believe that women should be subservient to men.
On the other side, there are a number of Islamic countries where women are not oppressed.
I am sorry if I played a part in causing any hard feelings on this thread.
I read through my posts, and I am not particularly proud of them. It doesn't matter if I think I was right or not. I was off topic, and played a part in hi-jacking a thread. I just don't feel good about those posts, and I do realize that posting on a public forum is quite different than voicing my opinions face to face with people, which is really the ideal way to argue with people.
Pip: have you ever read Anthony Burgess' Nothing Like the Sun? He posits a number of interesting theories and fleshes them out into a fictive narrative:
Shakespeare's "shotgun wedding" to an older Anne
His homosexual affair with a young aristocrat
His wife's infidelities with Shakespeare's brothers
The death of the only child that was truly his: Hamnet
His affair with a black/mulatto actress (the "dark lady")
It is a fascinating novel based on possibilities.
The best still that he was Cervantes. You shall read it anyday.
No... Musicology had that beat. He had Shakespeare, Goethe, probably Cervantes, Mozart, Haydn, young Beethoven, Handel, Elvis, and the attacks of 9-11 as all the product of a consortium of Jesuits, Free Masons, Knights of Malta, and New York advertising executives.
Everything is around St.Germain, Stlukes, that unknown guy that nobody heard about...
Oh, how I do miss our old friend Musicology.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
But not probabilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I have my own musicology for a brother and room-mate. Yesterday he told me that the illuminati held a near total monopoly over all scientific inquiry and that were it not for their influence we would have developed the atom bomb back in the 18th century.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
I just face-palm it and wait patiently for him to cease speaking.
Yes, I know that it's commonly thought that Shakespeare was gay, based on the 20 or so sonnets to his financial patron, a certain young Lord. And even in those 20 something sonnets there are only about two, possibly three that suggest an attraction, and in none is there any mention of physical desire. On the other hand there were over a hundred sonnets to a mysterious dark lady, where physical attraction is frequently mentioned. One can never prove a negative, so I can't prove he was gay if he wasn't, but given his marriage, his children, the frequent, even bawdy heterosexuality in the plays, the fact that the young man in question was his patron, and the language toward that patron is rather conventional idolatry of a young man in the Adonis type (a trope), and there is no other suggestion of homosexuality with any other man, there really isn't much to go on to suggest Shakespeare was homosexual.
If Shakespeare was gay, so be it. I have nothing against it. It doesn't change his work one bit. But this claim to homosexuality is part of the political dynamics of today's literary academe.
Oh here's Wikipedia's entry on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuali...am_Shakespeare
Oops, after reading that, apparently I was wrong on the number of sonnets. The hundred or so were addressed to the young man, the fewer to the dark lady. I thought it was the other way around. Still, I don't think there is much to really cite on his homosexuality.
The notion of "gay" is problematic, as that is very much a 19th century reckoning of sexuality. It is also possible that there was a promiscuous male-male sexual scene within the theatre itself that Shakespeare engaged in. Likewise, it is quite possible, that like Philip Sidney, and various other poets at the time, neither the Young Boy nor the Dark Lady were actual persons, but rather just concoctions of Shakespeare's imagination - the same way Stella was in part based on a seemingly real person, but the actual relationship would, by history seem to not have been anything like that between Astrophil and Stella.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Either way, I do not think it matters. There are moments in Shakespeare where such issues of sexuality are perhaps alluded too - relations between certain characters seeming to have questionable intentions. Still, the actual Shakespeare, like the sexuality are quite mysterious. I know not gay nor straight, I, like every other reader, knows nothing. At least we know that Christopher Marlowe had pedophile tendencies toward young men, he was explicit - Shakespeare absolutely silent.
I think the issue is saying he was straight though. Why say that? Why the urge to call him straight or gay? How does that actually effect his plays? that is the real question - the actual debates on the identity of the author are so useless to the text itself that it is punishing to see every text of Shakespeare try to mention it.
I'm not sure about the dark lady, but I think the youth has been identified as one of his patrons, the earl of south hampton.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
The only time I have ever come across any homosexual suggestion in the plays are those plays were there is cross dressing to hide characters. That's a rather conventional dramatic technique. Shakespeare there is playing on appearance and reality, not that characters desire to change sex or secretly desire someone of the same sex. Reading those plays as homosexual suggestiveness makes no sense at all.Quote:
Either way, I do not think it matters. There are moments in Shakespeare where such issues of sexuality are perhaps alluded too - relations between certain characters seeming to have questionable intentions.
He was quiet because he didn't have those tendencies. That's even more evidence toward contradicting he was gay. If you look through my writing, you won't find those tendencies either. :lol: You can't prove a negative.Quote:
Still, the actual Shakespeare, like the sexuality are quite mysterious. I know not gay nor straight, I, like every other reader, knows nothing. At least we know that Christopher Marlowe had pedophile tendencies toward young men, he was explicit - Shakespeare absolutely silent.
It's not that big deal. However, (1) historical accuracy would be nice. (2) Academic political dynamics is rather irritating and one hates to give in to it. (3) But more importantly, the context of an author's life colors the meaning of his work. If it were absolutely proven he was gay, we would probably read the plays differently. On the other hand, if it were proven that James Baldwin was really straight, then we would have to re-look at every thing he wrote.Quote:
I think the issue is saying he was straight though. Why say that? Why the urge to call him straight or gay? How does that actually effect his plays? that is the real question - the actual debates on the identity of the author are so useless to the text itself that it is punishing to see every text of Shakespeare try to mention it.
There is currently growing evidence that Shakespeare was actually a Roman Catholic. The Wikipedia entry on this sells it a bit short. It's much stronger than the entry puts forth, though I agree not conclusive yet. Read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_religion
If it is proven that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic in an era of Catholic persecutions, there may have to be a lot of re-assessing of his work with that in mind. I have always felt Shakespeare had a Catholic outlook to his plays, but I mostly took that as the relative closeness in theology between the Anglicans and the Catholics, and that Shakespeare had more of a remnant religious outlook. That may still be true, but a number of books have come out recently supporting Shakespeare's possible Roman Catholicism. You know, I don't think any of his plays are actually set in a protestant setting, but many are set in Italy, France, and pre reformation England. It's rather curious. Anyway the point being, an author's life is important to understanding his work.
The distinction also has to be made between commonly-held beliefs of the time that we today see as racist and an unusually high amount of racism. We might be tempted to call older writers racist now as some of the archaic attitudes are no longer acceptable, but this is not accurate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
How do you know that he wasn't to any extent homosexual?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
No apologies necessary, K. Getting off topic is the spice of life. I mean just look at this whole Shakespeare/gay thing going on now - that's completely off the reservation, but it's fun to read, eh?Quote:
Originally Posted by KCurtis
Anyhoo, ah-hem, back on subject. I enjoyed the essay(s), Auntie. You clearly put a lot of thought and hard work into it (them). What do you think of James Wood's criticism? I'm sure you already know - he's a literary critic for The New Yorker, and he also has a book out - How Fiction Works - which is slightly mis-titled. A better title would be: How Certain Mechanisms in Fiction Work. But that's a bit cumbersome.
Kelby, I roughly explained in posts 101 and 103 above. You can also read the Wikipedia entry on the subject here:Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...al_orientation
The whole question of his possible homosexuality rests on a few lines from a few sonnets to his patron, and if you really look carefully the suggestions are rather ambiguous. Given Shakespeare was a married man with children, given in the thousands of pages he wrote only these handful suggestions can be cited, given a rather bawdy heterosexuality in places, I really find the possibility rather remote. Is it possible? Sure, but unlikely. Look at the sonnets in question and read them and see what you think. I think Sonnet 20 is the one most cited. That's the only one that credibly supports the homosexual argument. But then think of this: the whole concept of praising his young patron is a sort of game, a trope, and once inside the trope, then the language stretches to beyond reality. The author begins to role play. That explains the handful of sonnets that suggest homo-eroticism.
True to an extent, I will not debate points, but it misses the fundamental question of how necessary is the person Shakespeare to the body of work that is Shakespeare?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I do not see how questions about who Shakespeare may or may not have been, who he may or may not have been writing to, or about have anything to do with the enjoyment, or understanding of his work. As such, I think we are all probably better to ignore such questions, and just work on enjoying the work that is Shakespeare, as we are not in need of some long-winded theory by some academic to dictate how a perceived life of Shakespeare could possibly influence a large, varying and contradictory body of work.
The power of Shakespeare, most would agree, lies in his creation of unique personalities and worlds. That the same person can come up with Cleopatra as Juliet, Romeo as Lear is what makes the artist perceived as such a God amongst men. I don't need to know he may have been a catholic (that seems a bit of an odd reading, considering the first "uncatholic" person on the throne of any significance was Queen Elizabeth anyway), nor does it seem to effect any appreciation of the Bard.
R e m i n d e r
Please remain faithful to the original aim of the thread.
There are many threads dealing Shakespeare's sexuality, where you can carry on with this discussion.
Off-topic posts will be removed without further notice.
Wow! What a thread. It took me a week on-and-off to finish reading what everyone has said, but well worth it (well, maybe except for the JBI-bashing portion). Thanks Auntie for starting the well thought-out post.
On the question: do we need to understand the author to understand the work? Auntie, and also in quoting T.S. Eliot's own words, and JBI do not think so. Yet, Virgil, and if one were to interpret broadly, Vince Passaro seems to think that it matters (cf. the reference of him knowing Edward Said in person). I don't have a very well thought-through position here, but I am inclined to see that anything that might potentially add to one's understanding of the text should not be ruled out; the political stance, religious affiliation, and sexual orientiation -- all are potentially relevant. I guess Auntie was really reacting to, was that they can't be ALL that is relevant for the understanding of the text. Maybe it is just a matter of degree, that needs to be judged, on a case by case basis.
On the debate of "whether the great authors are 'like us'" - well, clearly most of 'us' cannot write the Commedia in Italian; but that may be beyond the point. If one is told that a piece of "serious writing" (meaning, a text that needs some efforts to plough through and understand) is generated by a computer algorithm (an example of "not like us"), would one be motivated to read the text carefully? Thus I feel that in the classroom context, to generate interest and first efforts, reading the great authors "like us" is not objectionable. And in reality, whether a text was introduced as a great piece of literature to be venerated because it is part of the Canon, or whether it was introduced as a work that one can relate to, ultimately the reader would have no other way to approach the text other than starting from the reader's current frame of reference, i.e. themselves. I am more with Commedian on this point.
On literature departments needing to justify its value - I actually think it is a good thing. If literature's value is purely in aesthetic enjoyment, I would argue that its learning should be funded more privately (like learning to play the piano) than being part of the core curriculum of all high schools and higher institutions of learning. Yes, literature needs training to be understood; but why it should be funded by general taxpayers' money is a legitimate question that the university departments should justify and ultimately the communities / ministries need to decide. And it has been mentioned before, ultimately, the meta-discussion should be on the justification as to what is truly necessary for someone to be considered "educated". It is not clear how much difference there are among "piano-playing", "chemical formulas", "differential equations", "Plato" or "Shakespeare". And geographies / generations may also play a role here.
The critics of New Criticism of the first half of the 20th century argued that way, that the author's biography was not important to understanding the work. DH Lawrence argued similar. While I am supportive of most elements of New Criticism, I have to disagree with them there. While an author's bio is not the predominant element to understanding his work, it is part of it. Even on the face of it, Shakespeare only makes sense in the context of Renaissance Europe, and the context of his life certainly shapes the reading. Shakespeare could not possibly be a modern writer.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
And I disagree about the Catholicism not being significant. The distinction between how Catholics view suffering is different than most protestants, though I'm not sure about Anglicans. King Lear is about suffering and how to handle suffering. If that scene where Lear strips himself naked in the storm is truly an allusion to St Francis of Assisi stripping himself down to face the world, then we might read the play completely different.
Here's another. Hamlet is a student of Wittenberg, the Protestant center of learning during the Renaissance. However, the ghost from Purgatory is clearly only a Catholic belief. Countless ink has been spilled over the last century trying to understand Hamlet as a Protestant hero trying to understand the nature of the world. But if Shakespeare is Catholic, then we can see the irony that is implied, the undermining of protestant reason. Trying to understand the nature of our world only through reason is a failure, as Hamlet ultimately realizes. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than your philosophy ever dreamed of." and "There's divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." If Shakespeare is Catholic, I would say it's a completely different reading.
And finally I was thinking about this earlier today. I've been reading Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Whitman's sexuality has never been confirmed, but it's generally acknowledged he was homosexual, and I would say that is correct. No question one can see the homosexuality in the work and one appreciates the poems more when one can feel the suggestions. I'm not sure if the reading changes any if we suddenly found him to have been straight, but I think the texture of the poems would change.
No I disagree. Biography is important to fully understanding an artist.
Yes, that's a good way to phrase it, "it's a matter of degree." Whether an author is a man or a women is certainly on the face an important fact. Knowing that Ralph Ellison is a black man writing in the middle of the 20th century is an important fact to putting Invisible Man into context.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
Isn't it quite common for writers to base their on some element of their life?
Maybe the guy who wrote the text Shakespeare is adapting was a Catholic. Just the other day I was reading some of Walter of Chatillon's 12th century Latin epic the Alexandreis, and in the second book of the poem King Darius sends Alexander the Great some balls to play with as more fit for his youth than warfare. Now, anyone who has read Henry V will recognize the famous tennis ball scene of Act I scene 2, and notice throughout the rest of the play that Henry is very Alexander like. As for Hamlet, there is some speculation about an Ur-Hamlet popular in Shakespeare's day, and anyway the story is an obvious adaptation of Aeschylus' Oresteia. And anyone who's read both Hamlet and The Oresteia will remember that the ghost of King Agamemnon appears to his son Orestes and appeals to him to kill the usurper, his brother, but to spare the Queen for her part. But Aeschylus was neither Catholic nor Protestant so what are we to make of his ghosts? As for Lear and his madness, Shakespeare only had about twenty different sources for that play, so who knows whose innovation that was.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
This is simple, do you keep wondering why was Ovid banished and this would affect your understanding of his verses?
Not really. I'd be more interested if he had left a sort of artistic method or some kind of statement about how he worked as an artist. I think those usually shed more light on the work than a biography. Think Horace's Ars Poetica, Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical ballads, T.S. Eliot's non-fiction essays like Tradition and the Individual Talent, Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading, or Torquato Tasso's Discourses on The Art of Poetry. Hemingway frequently discusses his technique and philosophy and here and there praises this writer or that, which I think is much more valuable than knowing about his rocky relationship with his mother.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
I'm going to have to go with Mortal on this one. While I'm not about to completely dismiss the value of an artist's biography, I think Romanticism and Freud have had too much impact upon our notion of interpreting art as some sort of autobiographical confession. Taken further, I think far too many readers look to art to reinforce their own experiences, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc... The reality is that not all art is about the artist... or the audience.
And considering we enjoy Ovid a lot, his imense impact, knowing why he was bashished must be the most irrelevant thing ever. Of course, it may be a funny story, but do we need? No.
And yes, some of those essays are among my favorites reading, great writers writting about their work. So much about the academic critic that, like i saw once, said literary criticism have 100 years or so. The kind of criticism that need some fantasy in form of theory, not the kind of criticism that is a small masterwok by itself.
I'm fear that I disagree with you here. It isn't really fair that the study of literature be accessible to only the "1%" (the ruling class whose members can afford it.) We'd like to keep discussions in this particular thread on-topic, however, so if you wish to continue discussions of accessibility, please referQuote:
Originally Posted by lawpark
to the thread which attempts to address those questions:
Escaping the Surround of Force
Not really because were that the case, every creative work would be anQuote:
Originally Posted by Mr.lucifer
autobiography. For instance:
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
yes, on literature and arts, yes, it would be great that everyone have access. But, the issue here is priority. And the world is not fair. Personally, I think teaching how to cook is more important in education than teaching literature - since everyone eats, and it satisfies something more basic in Maslow's hierachy. The fact the educational world considered literature more than cooking skills defines what an "educated person" is - that I consider unfair elite arrogance.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Isn't it quite common for writers to base their (art) on some element of their life?
Is it? Is all art little more than a veiled form of autobiography?