Gay hamlet

This post is written by Lauryn Adj (University of Sheffield) and adapted from a paper given at &#;Reimagining the Gothic with a Vengeance, vol. 5: Returns, Revenge, Reckonings&#; where it was awarded was awarded a prize for best paper.

Oscar Wilde wrote that homosexuality was “the love that dares not speak its name”. The Gothic is, in many ways, about the unspoken, the unshown, the undead. Hamlet encompasses all of those things. Countless productions have cast Hamlet as a homosexual, such as Scott Parkinson’s portrayal at the Writers’ Theatre in In this essay, I want to investigate the homosexual undercurrent that runs throughout the play, and how this only heightens the gothic nature of the text. In the corner of the Internet dedicated to literary blogs, the phenomenon of ‘Tragic Danish Boyfriends’ has been conceived, referring to the tragic trajectory of Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship. The idea of Renaissance Friendship has been applied to many Shakespearean texts, but not widely to Hamlet. This is an notion which speculates that male friendships in Renaissance texts were oft

Anonymous asked:

This has most likely already been asked, so I am sorry, but I could not find it, hence the question. I have recently seen a representation of Hamlet in which Hamlet and Horatio were given a very strong, basically romantic bond. So I was left wondering if that was just the actors' going uncontrolled or if that relationship could be read as somewhat romantic from a scholarly point of view as adv. (( thanks so much, love your blog ))

Hi, thanks for the question! And thanks for checking past asks first. I haven’t actually been asked much about Hamlet and Horatio.

Scholarly perspective is not unified (on anything really), and can also include what’s called ‘queer reading’ which is the behave of going against the text or deliberately reading against the grain in a deconstructionist manner in order to challenge existing conceptions. In those studies, there will be a queer subtext to almost any text. But if you don’t seize much out of context, there’s not much overt suggestion that Hamlet and Horatio have a romantic bond in Hamlet. Shakespeare is capable of making male

I am hardly the first one to suggest that there might be more going on than meets the eye in Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. In , a scholar named Edward P. Vining published a book, The Mystery of Hamlet, that took such evidence as the prince&#;s rejection of Ophelia and excessive attachment to Horatio, as well as a painstaking examination of the text, to present the theory that &#;Prince&#; Hamlet was actually a princess&#;a girl being raised as a boy for political reasons. This interpretation was used as the basis of one of the earliest filmed versions of the participate, a silent German production starring Danish actress Asta Nielsen as a cross-dressing female Hamlet in love with Horatio. This interpretation, mind you, did not require changing the existing text of the play--only playing what was already there with a different subtext. (For more on the history of women in the role, check out this recent article by my very courteous blurber and sometime pen-pal, Charles Marowitz.)

Of course, these days, another theory dares to speak its name about why the prince might prefer the company

HAMRATIO! Is Hamlet bisexual? Gay? In love with Horatio?

ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod

OK, so I've only recently been introduced to the "Hamratio" theory, which is, in short, that Hamlet and Horatio are at least in some sense, in love.

There's many variations on this theory. One idea is this: Hamlet is a closeted bisexual. He IS in adoration with Ophelia and the two include an established relationship. He never got to pursue any relationship with Horatio or any other man for some complex reasons. For one thing, due to his status, he probably wouldn't want people knowing he's not strait. And two, he's already in a relationship with Ophelia and despite him being an a-hole sometimes, the two are still in love with eachother. Furthermore, Horatio is gay and in love with Hamlet but can't pursue any relationship with him, due to the reasons above. If I was to go with the Hamratio theory, I think this is the most feasible aspect of it.

Another theory is that Hamlet is gay and that's that. And he and Horatio are in cherish. Period.

There's other variation too.

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