To be or not to be....

This past week I read an article published in The Guardian by Don Paterson in which he implies that Shakespeare was clearly or obviously a homosexual. Perhaps he was sexually frustrated. He married Anne when he was 18 and they did have eight children together. If he was in love with a man why would he be engaging in sex with his wife as often? Frustration, that he couldn't be who he truly wished to be.

He wrote so passionately about love, in Romeo and Juliet there is young love that is so pained by the rifts in their families they take their lives to be together forever in death. Macbeth and his wife were consumed by each other and a want of power. They stood in each others corners until they were literally driven crazy as a result of their control.  Did he write from a personal place or was it from what he observed around him? Was a friend of his the subject of his writings? As in Sonnet 18, he had written,"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee." So many questions still, so many that can not be answered, the answers are buried with Sir William himself. He has given me entertainment by his comedies, brought me through pain with his tragedies and baffled me with his sonnets. It's been quite the trip Sir William Shakespeare, it really has.

Shakespeare's woman

Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare, lived in a farmhouse. A goal for most woman from Anne's social upbringing was marriage. She met William when she was 26, still single at such an age is unusual. She wasn't single for long because the young Anne became pregnant before they were married. Chaste she was not! She is said to have been domestically educated and illiterate. So ironic that a man who is known to have created all these amazing literary works of ART was married to a woman that would likely not have been able to read what he wrote.

She likely wondered if her husband was faithful to her. The talk was that in his many travels he was having affairs. However a woman like Anne seems lucky to have gotten married to someone like William Shakespeare at all. Maybe he was having affairs and she was willing to overlook them, knowing that she was married and not frowned upon by society being an old maid.

Sir Walter's ladies...

 

Elizabeth Throckmorton, was affectionately known as Bess. She was a maid to Queen Elizabeth I.  She was a wife to Sir Walter Raleigh.  However before she was his wife she was to be faithful to Queen Elizabeth. The Queen was not the type to give a blessing to a man who was already in her favor to marry one of her courtiers.  The Queen lavished Walter with riches and expected him to remain at her beck and call. However Bess was in love with him and didn’t back away. Quite the contrary Bess continued to go after the man she loved and in effect “won” in every sense of the word. 

Bess was described as being intelligent, passionate and courageous; all of these would not be typical of a Renaissance woman. She was not the chaste woman she was expected to be.  This is obviously proven by her child with Sir Walter conceived in the summer of 1591 when she hadn’t married him until that fall. The marriage was a very secret affair. All of these attributes seem very unbecoming a woman of such times.   

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

Queen Elizabeth I: [during a briefing with Walsingham and Bess] We shall have to look out a husband for you soon, Bess.
Elizabeth Throckmorton: Not too soon, my lady.
Sir Francis Walsingham: There are husbands to be had.
Queen Elizabeth I: [to Bess] Don't you want to be married?
Elizabeth Throckmorton: I'll want the marriage if I want the man.

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0055971/quotes

This is very uncharacteristic of a woman in the Renaissance. Typically marriage is the goal. She is portrayed as not wanting a marriage unless the man makes it worth the step. 

Daugther, Mother, Child...

Claribel was sent to be married to the King of Tunsia by her father's orders. It was seen as a way to expand their family's reach to Africa. This would be good for their family. Even though the Africans were seen as a people of "wild" background, completely unrefined comparitvely to how Claribel lived in Europe. Daughter of a King she would of course be well read and educated to a level above her subjects in Africa. Because Claribel weds the King of Tunis, her father will now be able to benefit from the union as well.

Sycorax, is a an unfortunate soul that arrives at the island because she is exiled from Algeria. Her eviction from her home is likely one of shame due to the pregnancy. This is very typical of a woman that not virtuous and allows herself to fall to the passions of a man whom she is not betrothed to or promised to wed.  This makes me think that Sycorax came from a home where the values weren't instilled in her to wait for the proper man. Rather than her family embrace her they are shamed and send her away to what could well have been her death.

 
When Miranda sees Ferdinand she is in love with him nearly immediately. Her father begs of her to please understand that the world is not merely made up of monstrous beings like Caliban and the attractive Ferdinand. Prospero watches over his daughter Miranda when she is in contact with Ferdinand most likely because he wants her wed to someone with promise. Ferdinand is the furture King of Naples and therefore a perfect mate for his only child. However he cannot help but ensure his daughter's virtues remain in tact, by saying:

"Then, as my gift and thine own acquisition

Worthily purchased take my daughter: but

If thou dost break her virgin-knot before

All sanctimonious ceremonies may

With full and holy rite be minister'd,

No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall

To make this contract grow: but barren hate,

Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew

The union of your bed with weeds so loathly

That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed,

As Hymen's lamps shall light you." (4.i.14-24)

Miranda the meek...

Miranda is a weak player in the Tempest. She follows along with her father and does as she is expected. When her father mercilessly calls Caliban a slave upon other terrible names, she does the same. The island Caliban grew to believe was his was taken out from under him by a bully, Prospero. Miranda stands by her father and doesn't try to implore him to treat Caliban better even though he took great efforts to teach them how to survive on the island.

Miranda is nothing like Juliet or Beatrice in terms of having a voice of her own and being outspoken. Even Lady Macbeth displayed strength in her character although there seems to be quite an age difference between the two. The feel of Miranda is one of a young girl without a true voice in the world. Not until Caliban upsets her in cursing her when she has taken such efforts to teach him to speak.  There seems to be more of a paralell between Miranda and Katharine, from Taming of the Shrew, Miranda behaves as her father commands her in much the same way Petruchio commanded Kate to adhere to his orders.

In the photo found depicting Miranda with her father Prospero she is behind him almost turned away from him. It almost appears as she is fearful of him too. Caliban is seen cowering from wrath of Prospero even thought he appears very strong in body - he is obviously weak in mind. Caliban has been beaten down by Prospero to believe he is not worth the same as them. The feel from the play is also that Miranda is suppressed by Prospero different sort of slave to her father. She does as he commands, perhaps without a choice because he performs spells to put her to sleep and to rouse her.

Lady Macduff, innocence lost

Lady Macduff is the personification of a mother in Elizabethan times. She guarded her son fiercely while the guards came to kill them. Lady Macduff is a true parent protecting her son and loving him. This is far unlike Lady Macbeth's speech about dashing out the brains of her babe. Lady Macduff speaks kindly to her child she is protective and loving. This was not like anyone else. The Witches, Hecate or Lady Macbeth were vile, nasty without conscience. Lady Macduff was angry with her husband for abandoning their family. 

LADY MACDUFF	Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
	His mansion and his titles in a place
	From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
	He wants the natural touch: for the poor wren,
	The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
	Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
	All is the fear and nothing is the love;
	As little is the wisdom, where the flight
	So runs against all reason. (6-14) Act 4, Scene 2

 http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth_4_2.html

 She questions her husbands decision to leave and tend to business over his family. A woman should not question her husband but Lady Macduff does and rightly so!  She and her son share the sweetest conversation in the play. They discuss how they will manage to get through this difficult time. Her son conveys how easy it would be to kill an honest man because there are so many liars and swearers in the world. It is one of the saddest and most poignant parts of the movie watching this conversation take place. It humanizes her character in comparison to the other players. 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair...

Lady Macbeth, is her name but she is nothing close lady-like. She is capable of plotting a murder and encouraging her husband to carry it out. Her character is one that is cold, and uncharacteristic of any female Shakespeare wrote about. Being a woman isn't necessarily about being soft, mushy, and crying at ease about anything. To be a strong woman, it is sometimes necessary to be tough, rough and bold. Lady Macbeth takes this all to a new level.

 

 

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Macbeth_Cattermole.jpg

"Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top full

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it!" (1.5.38)

 Lady Macbeth is wife to a Lord but wants him to be king at any cost. She upholds the renaissance expectations put upon in some ways. She is the lady of the house and to that she makes certain the King's stay will be a comfortable one.  However; women typically want to give life, as capable of such a miracle, but Lady Macbeth seems to want none of it. She practically brags about smiling at the baby in her arms while she plucked her nipple from it, depriving it of nourishment. She doesn't stop at just depriving of milk she goes to the extreme of violence against a defenseless child. "and dashed the brains out" not something a sane woman would do - a woman wouldn't hurt her own child...if in fact the child she is referring is her child.

The photo above is a visual contradiction of the role of man and wife in the renaissance. The wife is supposed to be below the husband and lesser than him in every way. In this photo Macbeth appears to have fallen in every sense of the word. Lady Macbeth stand above looking more the part of the regal leader. She is surely a transgressor, going beyond the limits of normalcy. She is as well an outcast, from women, wives and mothers in the ways they should behave as a part of their husband. Her controlling ways in the play are contradictory to the role she should play in society.

Sigh....

William Shakespeare

 "Sigh No More, Ladies..."

(From "Much Ado about Nothing")

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more;

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never;

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny;

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,

Or dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into. Hey, nonny, nonny.

 

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/shakespeare/sigh_no_more_ladies.html

The above poem is at the beginning of the movie, Emma Thompson recites it to the people. She is sitting in a tree, looking every bit like a woman that hasn’t a care in the world. It is the epitome of a woman that is confident and carefree. She isn't going to conform to what she is supposed to be, she is her own woman and if it makes men not want to deal with her so be it. She would rather not be

BEATRICE

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy
and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all
that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else
make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please
me.' (46-50) ActII,SceneI

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/much_2_1.html

The duty of a daughter is to honor her father and not ask for a husband that she desires. Hero may want a handsome fellow but it is implied she is to ask her father, how may I please you? Whom should I marry? And she does, she marries Claudio even though he has humiliated her and trashed her name in front of the entire community.

Beatrice's wrath for Hero's reputation

BEATRICE:

"Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath

slandered, scorned, dishonored my kinswoman? Oh, that I

were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take

hands and then, with public accusation, uncovered

slander, unmitigated rancor—O God, that I were a man! I

would eat his heart in the marketplace."(295-300)
ACT IV, Scene 1 (at church)

 

Beatrice wishes she were a man so that she may behave as a man would in defending her cousin Hero. Claudio has dishonored her cousin in such a manner that Beatrice is determined to see him pay. This is not the behavior of an Elizabethan woman...demanding, angry, loud...all of the qualities that would be frowned upon by the men and many of the women around her. She is furious that this man can make such accusations and have no proof to back them up. Claudio is able, because he is a man, to stand by and say nothing and all his comrades do the same. All of the men stand by including Hero's father. Her own father is ashamed of Hero believing this man.  Men were superior to women this proved it.

Hero herself doesn't have the strength to stand up for herself, or she knows that she truly can't. No one would listen to a woman, believe a woman, never! The men including her own father, Leonato have dismissed her as a common whore. There isn't a moment that the words of Claudio are questioned. Hero has been branded a woman unworthy of Claudio, even he didn't question Don John. Why wouldn't Don John be questioned why wouldn't there be more proof needed, because a man said it and therefore it must be so. Sadly Hero's reputation is ruined for the time being. She agrees to marry him because he has repented once she was proved to be true to him. If Hero refused to marry Claudio she may have appeared "unmarriable" going forward, because she had a voice and stood up for herself. This was not Shakespeare's wish, she does as is expected and they live happily ever after.