The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0516  Thursday, 13 December 2012

[1] From:        Mari Bonomi < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         December 12, 2012 4:11:28 PM EST

     Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Ven. Dedication 

[2] From:        Julia Griffin < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         December 12, 2012 5:45:43 PM EST

     Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Ven. Dedication 

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From:        Mari Bonomi < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         December 12, 2012 4:11:28 PM EST

Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Ven. Dedication

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 , Ian Stere wrote:

>We now know that these assessments are, in all probability, 

>badly incomplete or plain wrong. Evidence, in the form of the 

>Dedication, points to a highly intimate relationship between 

>poet and an aristocratic, effeminate young Narcissus.

I would suggest that a more appropriate way to set that statement might be “I believe that these assessments are, possibly, incomplete or wrong. To me, there is evidence in the Dedication that suggests . . . .”

I would also suggest that many other readers, equally scholarly, might find no evidence of a “highly intimate relationship” but merely a client/patron relationship.

I fear that Mr. Steere, like others who occasionally raise their heads on this forum, has found a hobby horse, and is insisting on riding it in complete disregard of the weakness of the evidence on which he’s built his floor.

I suspect this is another case of “Sonnet 20 is clearly homo-erotic, so obviously Shakespeare must have been involved in homosexual relationship(s).”

I would appreciate suggested sources of scientific/scholarly discussions of sexuality in the Elizabethan era; my (admittedly non-scholarly) understanding is that “sexuality” as we worry ourselves about it today was not significant until perhaps the mid-19th century.

Mari Bonomi

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From:        Julia Griffin < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         December 12, 2012 5:45:43 PM EST

Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Ven. Dedication

On sexy Southampton, etc. -

Has Dr. Steere read Anthony Burgess’ novel Nothing Like the Sun?  As I remember, it’s all there . . . Schoenbaum thought it was silly.  (Well, what he said was: “Burgess comes before us as novelist, not scholar, and he is entitled to the biographical irresponsibilities of art.”—Shakespeare’s Lives, p. 562).

Julia Griffin