The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.1105. Sunday, 2 November 1997.
[1] From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 31 Oct 1997 10:47:46 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 8.1097 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
[2] From: Elizabeth Dietz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 31 Oct 1997 11:27:36 -0600 (CST)
Subj: Re: SHK 8.1097 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
[3] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 31 Oct 1997 17:07:13 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 8.1090 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
[4] From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 1 Nov 1997 07:54:39 -0500
Subj: SHK 8.1090 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 31 Oct 1997 10:47:46 -0500
Subject: 8.1097 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Comment: Re: SHK 8.1097 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Andy White and others interested in a possible homoerotic element in the
friendship of Antonio and Bassanio will be stimulated but not, I think,
made certain by the treatment it gets in Jonathan Miller's made-for-TV
film, with Laurence Olivier as Shylock, Joan Plowright as Portia, and
Jeremy Brett (he whose reading Andy so much admires) as Bassanio; the
film is now available on tape, and is well worth seeing on many other
grounds. It is certainly the case that in this production Bassanio's
approaches to Portia are markedly less passionate than hers to him, and
that at the end of the play a not obviously ecstatic Bassanio has
followed Portia into what she still calls her house and that a
still-melancholy Antonio seems to have included himself out (along with
Jessica) of the cozy new domestic group.
Dave Evett
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Elizabeth Dietz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 31 Oct 1997 11:27:36 -0600 (CST)
Subject: 8.1097 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Comment: Re: SHK 8.1097 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
In "Players of Shakespeare," v.2, Roger Allam writes about acting a
queer Mercutio (a choice echoed in Lehrman's Romeo and Juliet).
Elizabeth Dietz
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 31 Oct 1997 17:07:13 -0500
Subject: 8.1090 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Comment: Re: SHK 8.1090 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Regarding gay Venice, has anyone mentioned Richard Levin's <italic>Love
and Society in Shakespearean Comedy</italic>? Richard has two chapters
on <italic>Merchant</italic> in which he gives a off-beat reading of
both Shylock and Antonio.
To my knowledge, the first critic to publish a gay reading of
<italic>Merchant</italic> was Graham Midgley in 1960, but I don't recall
seeing his name again. Is it a pseudonym?
Yours, Bill Godshalk
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 1 Nov 1997 07:54:39 -0500
Subject: Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Comment: SHK 8.1090 Re: Gay Iago; Gay Merchant
Dear Scott Shepherd: How right you are. I too have noticed that a number
of men in Shakespeare's plays
1. Speak 'poetically'
2. Kiss each other on the lips
3. Wear brightly coloured clothes
4. Cry
One of my students tells me that most of the women are in fact men in
drag. I think they should all be reported to the Cincinnati Shakespeare
Festival.
Terence Hawkes