#caffeienechesters

I JUST READ THIS ALOUD TO MY BROTHER AND HE SAID, “WHY NOT HAVE ONE POSSESS THE OTHER AND THEN YOU’LL HAVE BOTH”

There’s a certain reading of comparatively archaic texts that suggests that the author consciously engages in “queer” discourse, if that’s the terminology we’re using, but due to the social and moral climate of the time in which they wrote they were forced to symbolically denounce any sort of positive representation of queer relationships by punishing the characters involved in some way, or at least returning to and reconstructing the status quo at the narrative’s end. Vaguely acknowledging the possibility that this line of argumentation could involve an ahistorical conception of the homosocial vs. the homoerotic, or merely be a case of blatant oversimplification, I would argue that such a reading could be applied to my favourite Shakespearean comedy: Twelfth Night. I would think the possible queer readings of the text would be fairly straightforward: obviously the powerful Olivia was “contracted to a maid” (5.1.260) who spent the majority of the play not in her “maid’s garments,” as it were. If a skeptical reader required any further convincing, related to the previous question another one of my preferred Shakespearean ‘ships is that of Antonio and Sebastian (please see Antonio’s effusive outpouring of “love without retention or restraint” in the fifth act). However, the play ends with a return to the supposed “natural” (heterosexual) order as Viola marries Orsino, and Olivia marries Sebastian. That said, I suppose my queer headcanon would be the existence of an authentic Shakespearean endorsement of the subversion of this established natural order, and as such the ending I would rewrite would be one of Big Gay Weddings. Thanks for asking!

anyway my opinions are A L L D A Y E V E R Y D A Y

wow

you still win though 

I. HATE. EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUWHY. DO I LOOOVE YOOOUUU

BUT IT WASN’T WORTH IT

alastair/dean tho