Angus, am I still allowed to view Edward II as, well, gay? (The play, that is, not the actual historical character, who shows up in my Homosexuals in History right off the bat, the poor dear.)

How could you see EdII as anything else? In any version, real or fictional?

Actually, I'm very much with Angus, although my gender/sexuality studies tools are utterly rusty these days.

Former high school lecturer on the Scots play piping up from the corner to mostly say, staying out the convo. But one thing: I am right in the middle of the opinion scale. I agree with Angus and his take on having to take the expressions between many same-gender characters from Jacobean and/or Elizabethan lit in a purely historical context.

But I think, and have always thought, that Hamlet is full of homoerotica. I always thought Laertes, as presented, was grieving less for his sister and completely unlikeable father than he was for Hamlet's not loving him.

No strong opinion on the comedies, which do little for me. Except Tempest, which isn't really a comedy. And my old nickname was Sycorax, so the Tempest, yes.

(back into corner)

Well, there is reading Olivia of "12th Night" as a lesbian, since she was rejecting all men, except for the one she heard that didn't really seem like a man, and ended up being a woman in drag.

well, I guess I do agree to a certain extent, at least when slash threatens to stop being a specific and very cool strategy for writing stories and to become a kind of overarching, blunt, one-size-fits-all way of approaching all narrative of any genre or period whatsoever.

Yeah, I've had the same reaction at times, where people see most, if not all, close friendships through the rosy slash-lenses and end up excluding a variety of other factors in taking that interpretation. On the flip side, with the 'sexualized everything' bit--well, I don't think that's a specifically slash-related phenomenon, because women and men's relationships are constantly sexualized where canonically there's only friendship and no one bats an eyelid.

The Hamlet/Horatio thing was something I saw mostly in the performances, and it didn't really strike me until the final scene were Horatio was this close to drinking from the poisoned cup so he could follow Hamlet into death. To me, from my 21st century standpoint, it just seemed that maybe there was more than friendship there. Though it must be admitted that in Shakespeare, people tend towards suicide more easily than is perhaps usual.

Sob. Y'all Brits are giving up wigs? And taking the drama out of the robes?

FWIW, I always told my dad that he should turn up in court in a kaftan and beads and carrying a guitar, saying "I'd like to tell this in my own way."

Ple, yes of course Edward II is gay! (Well, he liked fucking men, anyway). And really, go for it everyone, I'm not used to being the one in the position of discouraging people from reading stuff as gay! I've said my bit.

Ple, yes of course Edward II is gay! (Well, he liked fucking men, anyway). And really, go for it everyone, I'm not used to being the one in the position of discouraging people from reading stuff as gay! I've said my bit.

Of course, I'm in the odd position of assuming gay first. Which means it took several years to find out my now husband was actually trying to pick up on me.

Hey, PMM, I've been looking for you. My rodeo buddy wants me to use that there Internet thing to look up some pedigree for his horse whose grandad was Dash for Cash. I got far enough to find out Dash for Cash sired 1500 foals... is there a main resource site for pedigrees that you would go to first? I always have trouble finding genealogy on the Net.

I think there may be an all breed pedigree resource at [link] still. I used to be very active in the TB database there.

Hmm. I think I'd have to know the registered name of said horse, and/or the dam's name, in order to find anything. QH's allow for the use of AI, so the foal crops are huge (though even without AI, thanks to large books and shuttle stallions, the TB crops are getting there. Insane, it is.), which means you need some fairly specific information to pull up pedigree info online.