When I spotted this 11 Points article (via Reddit) that claims “11 Pieces of Evidence That Shakespeare Was Gay,” I thought, “Oh, lord, here we go again.” And at first read I thought, “Wow, terrible article with horrible points.”
Then I, you know, actually read it. And I’d like to think that this was the author’s whole point. First of all it’s a humor site. Second, his point is pretty plainly “Look, I have to make a pretty ridiculous leap before any of these can be considered evidence of anything, but the fact that I’m presenting them as research shows that people have, in fact, tried to make exactly this case with exactly these points.”
All the typical points are there — he didn’t love his wife, the sonnets are all about his love for another dude, too much cross dressing, you’ve heard them all before. A couple were new to me, though, like the urban legend that in the “original” Hamlet, the first letters of the last lines spelled out “I am a homosexual”? Come again? Given that there’s really no such thing as a single “original”, I’d still like to know what word supposedly started a line with the letter X.
Anyway, thought I’d post it and give the author a little acknowledgement for apparently being on the right and sane argument of the “We’ll never know for sure, and really, does it even matter?” debate. It’s an entertaining bit when you realize you’re not supposed to take it seriously.

Ok, the Bodycount game seems to be a clear win for Titus. So here’s version two of the game: which *play* has the highest onstage bodycount? The rules for this one are easier – how many bodies hit the floor? Note – dying offstage in this version does not count (Mercutio) unless your dead body is brought back on stage for some reason (Cordelia). So to kj’s point in the earlier thread, you can talk about the legions of dead all you want, but unless they’re lying at your feet, they don’t count. Somebody needs to go from on their feet to on their back.

While watching a commercial for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new movie, which looks like some sort of weird cross between “Falling Down” and “Death Wish”, I got to wondering about one-man killing machines. Specifically how people tend to joke about Hamlet being the bloodbath where everybody dies at the end. But, really, Hamlet only deliberately kills Claudius, no? He wounds Laertes, sure – but he didn’t know about the poison at that point. Likewise he sends R&G to their doom, but he’s not the one to pull that trigger. And Polonius, well, I suppose Polonius counts, but he was technically an accident. So we’ll mark Hamlet’s bodycount at 2, since even though he killed the wrong person, it was certainly his intent to kill somebody.
So, then, here’s the question. For onstage, mortal injury of another character, who has the highest body count in all of Shakespeare? I’m saying “onstage” on purpose, because the question really has more to do with how much killing the audience sees. So Macbeth’s murder of Duncan and the guards, for example, wouldn’t count.
Tybalt/Mercutio is why I called it “mortal injury”. Wounding somebody who then dies off screen? That counts.
I’m not familiar enough with each of the tragedies to count up accurately. Who wins? Richard? Titus?

Here’s a subject I’ve often given thought to here and there, and it clicked with me today that it would make an interesting topic of discussion. Sometimes Shakespeare tells us exactly how old a character is – Juliet being 13 coming immediately to mind. But what about when he doesn’t? “How old is Romeo?” and “How old is Hamlet?” are two of the most popular queries on the site.
So, here’s the game. Pick a character whose age is undetermined, and discuss how a change in age would effect the play. Macbeth, for instance. Is he a 20-something up and comer who is immediately thrust into the King’s good graces, and cracks under the pressure? It’s apparent that the Macbeth’s have had and lost a child, after all – something that coul be indicative of a new, young marriage. Or is he a 40 or 50 something who’s been toiling away for the decades, who finally worked his way so close to the top that it takes only a little nudge from the witches to make him think he can have it all? (I know, if we assume Macbeth is supposed to be a real person we can figure out what age he’s supposed to be. But I don’t recall any specific evidence from Shakespeare where he tells us how old the man is?)
Once upon a time I asked this question about King Lear’s Kent, because I thought that an age difference there would be fascinating — is Kent a young man standing up to the king, or is he the king’s lifelong faithful servant who can’t stand by and let such an injustice pass? Unfortunately, as show in the original post, Shakespeare does tell us how old he wants Kent to be. So we’re not allowed to muck too much with that one.
Any takers?

Cracked is always, always good for the laughs. Especially when they do Shakespeare.
So naturally when their story about The 5 Most Mind-Blowing Coincidences Of All Time leads off with Edwin Booth, I had to post it ;).
For more on Edwin Booth do not miss Prince of Players, an entire movie about the man with Richard Burton in the starring role.