Homoeroticism In The 1600's

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. The play centers on the lead female role and protagonist, Viola, who

“The Boys in the Band”, is a play about male homosexual relationships and the revealing truths of being gay in the 1960s. The play gives audiences a distinct perspective of homosexuality on the stage up until that time. The setting is in a New York City apartment that is owned by Michael. He and his gay friends are preparing a birthday party for Harold. Alan McCarthy, a former college roommate of Michael, also shows up at the party unexpectedly. In this paper, we will focus on Alan and Harold and their behaviors and impacts in the play.

In medieval and Elizabethan England, homosexuality was not only looked down upon, but was a crime punishable by law. Found perpetrators, including the famous King Edward II, were horribly punished. Edward was killed by “the slow and painful insertion of a red, hot poker into his anus”, along with his lover, who “had his genitals cut off and burned” (Sanders). Such is the world in which a bisexual William Shakespeare lived. Though he married Anne Hathaway at the age of 18, he was rumored to have had extramarital affairs with numerous men while in London (“Shakespeare’s Sexuality”). Gay men are present in many of Shakespeare’s plays, most prominently Twelfth Night. A sailor named Antonio falls in love with a man of noble birth named

Romantic desire is struggle ingrained within William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, strained by the nature of homosexual love. The depths of human sexuality are explored in Twelfth Night through the relationships between Duke Orsino and Viola as Cesario, Olivia and Viola, and Sebastian and Antonio. Twelfth Night represents homoerotic love in both radical and conservative ways, while furthermore questioning the boundaries of gender and disguise depicted by the relationships featured in the play. Shakespeare’s work is profound, since the play acknowledges homosexual love without punishment, and challenges if love is truly determined by gender, while also upholding

Although Twelfth Night is renowned for its comical nature and cross-dressing, on closer examination it appears that Shakespeare has used this comedy to have a greater effect on the audience than pure humour, supporting Berry’s statement. However, before attesting that Berry is entirely correct, we must evaluate three things: the way in which Shakespeare makes the audience feel ashamed, whether this shame is felt by both contemporary audiences and Elizabethan/Jacobean audiences, and whether shame is, as Berry writes “the ultimate effect”.

Upon the introduction to the main characters, it is revealed that the play encompasses the standard pattern of social behavior that is expected by American society. This is exhibited through the fact that Norman and Ethel are a straight couple who have been married for many years. It is traditional in American society for a man to marry a woman. Same-sex marriage has slowly gained acceptance in the twenty-first century; however, those who choose to marry someone of the same gender still receive discrimination and are often looked down upon by certain members of society. The play highlights this intolerance as Norman repeatedly mocks his two neighbors, who are a same-sex couple, in a joking manner. Norman chooses to banter about these two individuals solely because their relationship ceases to be a conventional aspect of American

By immediately questioning the morals of the society of the past, it shows how prejudice is carried on throughout time, as the characters in the play display such prejudice towards gays and women: (P22) Jared: “He’s a fag, they reckon” and (P25) Ricko: “Girls can’t balance right. Their centre of gravity is all up the shit.” This questions the audience, which are teenagers in particular, on their morals and attitudes towards these subjects, as the only way to stop prejudice in the future, is to stop the influence that creates it in today’s

him, it may be worth thy pains; for I can sing and speak to him in many sorts of

There is a certain degree of expectation with the genre of comedy that despite whatever difficulties appear within the play, by the end these will be resolved and the play will have a traditional happy-ending with a marriage or a celebration in the final scene. The “Twelfth Night” is no exception to this rule. Despite problems of confused identities and sexualities, the play ends with marriage for the major characters because they “have learned enough about their own foolishness to accept it wisely, and their reward, as it should be, is marriage.”(Schwartz 5140). There is a resolution of harmony to a certain extent and an endorsement of romantic love yet despite the happiness evident in the last scene, there are many elements in the play

The play is ultimately a fairy tale about restoring things to their natural balance, showing the consequences when one tries to meddle with the circumstances of a very powerful force, in this case being love. This production will essentially end with the union of Greece and England, mixing the two cultures in terms of dress, values, and mythology. There are still a number of problematic aspects with the play, particularly the theme of male dominance, but I intend to show the play as it was meant to be seen in Shakespeare’s day: a

With every great story line comes a theme. William Shakespeare created an art of intertwining often unrecognizable themes within his plays. In Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, one hidden theme is the idea of homosexuality. This theme might not have even been noticed until modern Shakespeare fans discovered them. According to Alan Bray’s book, Homosexuality in Renaissance England, “the modern image of ‘the homosexual’ cannot be applied to the early modern period, when homosexual behavior was viewed in terms of the sexual act and not an individual's broader identity.” (Columbia University Press). This difference between homosexuality as a “sexual act” and an

The story is a mixture of love, lust, seduction, death, honor and glory. It has a hint of everything which makes the act probably one of the best plays in English literature.

Comedy, in the Elizabethan era, often included themes of wit, mistaken identity, love, and tragedy, all tied up with a happy ending. These themes are prevalent in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a comical play that explores the pangs of unrequited love and the confusion of gender. Love is a powerful emotion that causes suffering, happiness, and disorder throughout the play. The play also demonstrates the blurred lines of gender identity, which ties into the modern day debate on sexuality and gender identity. The main characters in the play, Viola, Olivia, and Orsino are connected by a love triangle, each person pursuing an unrequited love. Suffering from love and the fluidity of gender are the prevalent themes explored throughout the play and intertwined with Viola, Olivia, and Orsino.

In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines

Most of the characters in the play have a certain role and most of them have a special bond with another person and share one of the three types of love. Some characters share the love of