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Sexual attraction between members of the same sex, which can be temporary
Sexual attraction between members of the same sex, which can be temporary
Sexual attraction between members of the same sex, which can be temporary
The Boy-Actor
Theatrical and political convention
Embodiment of the meta-dramatic theme of Identity Enables the depiction of desire and axiety Erotic effect of transvestism
(homo)erotism implies for male dominance. Psychoanalytic and feminist reading of transvestism as a liberating effect
2. Orsinos effeminacy
2. Orsinos effeminacy
Viola / Cesario
What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my masters love; As I am woman, now alas the day, What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe? O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me tuntie(ii.ii. 36-41)
Viola / Cesario
Viola / Cesario to Olivia:
If I did love you in my masters flame With such a suffring, such a deadly life, In your denial I would find no sense; I would not understand it (i. v. 256-59)
Viola / Cesario To Orsino: Too well what love women to men may owe. In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter lovd a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship (ii. iv. 105-9)
Viola / Cesario
What predisposes us to credit the second
comment as truth, but the first as false, a suspect performace, is, I suggest, largely our assumption of universal heterosexuality (p. 132)
Viola / Cesario
Viola / Cesarios erotic predicament threaten her/him with destruction:
Therefore, on, or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, thats certain, or forswear to wear iron about you (iii. Iv. 24446)
Viola / Cesarios response:
Pray God defend me! A little thing would Make me tell them how much I lack of a man (iii.iv. 295-96)
Viola / Cesario
Viola / Cesarios erotic predicament threaten her/him with destruction:
Therefore, on, or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, thats certain, or forswear to wear iron about you (iii. Iv. 24446)
Viola / Cesarios response:
Pray God defend me! A little thing would Make me tell them how much I lack of a man (iii.iv. 295-96)
Viola / Cesario
Phallocentrism:
Viola / Cesarios lacking is the signifier of her gender difference Masculinity is embodied in performance rather than biological equipment. Gender is prosthetic.
But come what may, I adore thee so That danger shall seem sport, and I will go (ii.ii. 43-44)
Antonios madness and imprisonment as the result of his vocalization of desire:
Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here I snatched one half out of the jaws of death, Relieved him with such sanctity of love, And to his image, which metought did promise Most venerable worth, did I devotion (iii.iv. 356-60)
Appropiate male desire is phallic, whether homoerotic or heterosexual; without that phallic force, men in Shakespearean drama are usually rendered either asexual or nominally heterosexual (p. 136)
I am suggesting, then, that the salient concern may be less the threat posed by homoerotic desire per se than that posed by non-monogamy and non-reproduction (p. 141)
Twelfth Night disrupts the cultural code that keeps both men and women in line, subverting patriarchy from within (p. 143)
Discussion
1. Can you think of any other homoerotic, or homosexual, relationship in other Shakespearean dramas?
Discussion
2. When Viola exceeds her text with Olivia, is she depicting a homoerotic or homosexual relationship?
Discussion
3. Do you think transvestism in the visual arts today is as subversive as in Elizabethan times?
References
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth night, or what you will.
Traub, Valerie. Desire and anxiety: circulations of sexuality in shakespearean drama. London: Routledge, 1992.
Yunger, John Grimes. Sex in the ancient world from A to Z. London: Routledge, 2005.
Shakespeare LET 1746-1 Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile Nicols Antinao, Guillermo Loyola, Vanessa Garrido