"Perhaps Antonio, in The Merchant of Venice, because he is one of the very few obviously gay characters in Shakespeare." Now, I've heard him make this comment sinceand I'm never sure how serious he is. The man knows as much about Shakespeare as just about anybody, so I'd love to see him go into depth on the subject one of these days.
22 A couple of years ago, I went to a stage performance of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, in which Antonio and Bassanio were portrayed as being in a gay relationship together since before the start of the play. This correspondingly affected the romance between Bassanio and Portia, which was portrayed as being somewhat forced.
The Homosexual Relationship Between Antonio and Bassanio in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice Tsun-Hsien Tsai Sophomore Student, Department of English National Changhua University of Education There are many pairs of male adults with honorable masculine friendships appearing in William Shakespeare’s popular plays, such as Antonio and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, Antonio.
‘Say how I loved you’: Queering the Emotion of Male Same-Sex Love in The Merchant of Venice Anthony Guy Patricia Given their rich interpretive potentialities, queer theory and emotionality studies seem like natural critical bedfellows. movements. Radford’s The Merchant of Venice opens with the titular merchant, Antonio, uttering the play’s first line, “In [truth] I know not why I am so sad” ().
He listens as his comrades, Solerio and Solanio, speculate as to the cause of his melancholy while he walks to the window. Obviously, they largely followed the Bible's injunction against sodomy and most avoided the deed, but many men openly loved or had passionate relationships with other men which were not sexual at least, not in that way.
No really, what is it? So thanks for joining us, and thanks to all the people who spoke to me today: we had Liz, Stanley, Michael, and Greg, and a huge thanks to the friends of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, without whom the podcast would not have been possible. The problem that Sinfield is addressing in this play is the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio.
View more publications by Duke University Press.
Cohen's breakdown of how many times the word 'Jew' or similar words were used made me look back on the play and think more about the repetition or use of words and how that affects the play and the meaning of the play. Sedgwick Ed. The result of Shylock's "flesh" his daughter hurt his "heart" emotionsso he tried to hurt others' "hearts" by destroying Antonio's "flesh" moved from below the belt to chest-height.
I do believe that the sonnets provide the key to his soul, as Wordsworth said, that Shakespeare unlocked his heart in these sonnets, and they bear witness to the ecstatic turmoil of being in love: the furious jealousy, the pleasure, the pain, the longing, the loneliness, the futility, the sense of inadequacy that can accompany that sort of passion. Jessie Randall. This is personal, but less in a Jew vs.
Chapter Licensed. And Greg begins by highlighting how people like to cast Shakespeare in their own image. Today, we have a very defined boundary between love and friendship, and for us, those two relationships are tangibly different, and we have all kinds of phraseology in the modern world to distinguish those things. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Your documents are now available to view. Cohen really addresses how the major problem in the play is the portrayal of the Jew, and the humiliation he has to go through.
Portia presents their love as so ridiculous in act V during the court room scene that she invites Antonio over. Staging this play is problematic in that it's easy to see both ways in which the play is anti-Semitic and non-anti-Semitic. He was clearly extraordinarily adept at line into the minds of characters of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds, [but] just because he could beautifully depict same sex relationships or love or lust does not mean that he himself felt that, in the same way that writing about Cleopatra did not make him an Egyptian suggest.
And Shakespeare knew that tension within himself. The Merchant of Venice. Grasso mentioned earlier homosexuals were fine as long as they didn't have sex. The real issue at stake was Shylock's conversion at court. In the start of his essay, he begins with showing how antonio dialogue within Shakespeare points to Antonio being clearly in love with Bassanio and if one takes that for granted then the entire play makes more sense.
It eventually got bowdlerized into flesh from around the heart area, in the play. I'm a firm believer in "there's nothing new under the sun. In: Menon, M. I read Sinfield's essay, and he pits Antonio against Portia in a battle for Bassanio's love. Is Gay an Audience for My Play? So merchant Shakespeare is showing venice would not be seen as outrageous; seeing a woman on stage would be much more upsetting.
Copyright ©horplug.pages.dev 2025