What if Shakespeare....

[Leona]

I really wanted this one in the Lounge for everybody to jump in on. I really want to hear, in addition to the normal MTF and GG responses we get here, I really want to hear from our FTM brothers and cis males, if we have any cis males here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare#Speculation_about_Shakespeare

To add to the speculation, and I'm hoping some literature major and/or english teacher will chime in on this, what if the speculations about both authorship and the sonnets could be solved quite easily? What if William Shakespeare was a transgender person?

If you take that as a premise, was he MTF or FTM? Was he a crossdresser, transvestitic fetishist, etc? Was he outright transsexual?

I'd start with speculating his birth sex and the sex he presented (which was obviously male). If he was FTM, where did the kids come from? If he was MTF, how closeted was he? Would the Dark Lady sonnets be about him, in that case?

[Beverley Sims]

Shakespeare has too many labels attached already.
Why confuse her/him? :)

[Leona]

Awww, Beverley, I was hoping when I saw you answered that I got more than a flippant answer. It's still a valid answer to the question, I was just hoping for something less flippant. :)

[Tracii G]

Rats ass is my answer.

[Leona]

Isn't there a draconian rule here that says if you don't care, don't answer?

[dawnmarrie1961]

Wasn't it quite common back then for men to dress up as woman on the stage?
As a play-write it would be normal for him to inject some of himself into what he wrote. Just as Leonardo Da Vinci injected himself into his the portrait of Mona Lisa. (If you compare his own self portrait to that of the Mona Lisa you will see they are quite similar. A coincidence? Perhaps.)

[Tracii G]

I'm not sure if that rule is still in force Leona. I'll get back to you on that.
There is so much speculation about him/her and how would anyone really know?

[Leona]

Wasn't it quite common back then for men to dress up as woman on the stage?
As a play-write it would be normal for him to inject some of himself into what he wrote. Just as Leonardo Da Vinci injected himself into his the portrait of Mona Lisa. (If you compare his own self portrait to that of the Mona Lisa you will see they are quite similar. A coincidence? Perhaps.)

As far as I know, there were no female players in Shakespeare's troupe. Men played Juliet, and Katherine, etc.

The interesting bit is how much crossdressing happens in Shakespeare's plays, and the fact that while he gets some comedic relief from it, he still almost always paints it in a reasonably good light. Then there's the mysteries involving the sonnets, which is what led me to the question in the first place.

Tracii G: This isn't about knowing, this is about thinking about it. If you want to continue living in a narrow world where intellectual curiosity is "rats ass", that's entirely up to you. Keep that attitude out of this thread, please. This thread is about exploring an idea, and if nobody answers, I'd prefer that to your answer.

[noeleena]

Hi,

What if he was or not so whats the beef about any way , is it about his looks it sure wont be about what he wore clothes of those times were very . well how do we say it more in keeping with what women would wear, skirts dress's & lots of embesiments such as makeup earings & the like,

He was well with in the Renaissance times so dress was any thing goes for that time, as we dont have any pic's of him it would be very hard to depict much in the way of looks apart from the odd copy of his bust, were paintings that good in detail. i dought it, or another way were there any true likeness of him .

What premise is this based on that he possible could be a trans person, or other for that matter,

Haveing said that we could then point the finger at any one why not the next step of is he well was he a he to start with he could have been female so a cover up would then be the order of the day, so who did the history recording, do we accept what we know or dought every thing thats writen & or said , i think we'd have a major history issue,

or do we just let sleeping dogs lie .....


...noeleena...

[Sabrina133]

Wasn't it quite common back then for men to dress up as woman on the stage?
As a play-write it would be normal for him to inject some of himself into what he wrote. Just as Leonardo Da Vinci injected himself into his the portrait of Mona Lisa. (If you compare his own self portrait to that of the Mona Lisa you will see they are quite similar. A coincidence? Perhaps.)

To answer your question - yes. Women were not alowed to perform on stage therefore, the female characters were performed by men, usually young, dressed in female clothes.

Could it have been possible for Shakespeare to have had a trist with one of these young actors who regularly performed women's parts? Of Course. Is it likely? Maybe and who cares. Was Shakespeare a FtM TS- Very unlikely as there is no evidence that Anne Hathaway took on lovers while he was away in London writing and performing.

Of course, there are some stories in the literary world that Shakespeare didnt write what is attributed to him - that the majority of the work was from Francis Bacon.

[GaleWarning]

DADT!
:love::drink::daydreaming: