See, I can make assumptions too.
Between reading Barry and this week’s articles, what kept arising in the forefront of all this non-fiction for me was the aspect of identity and main vein connection to reputation. As we know, words are very powerful and assumptions are even more dangerous. Stigmatizing a specific culture or group can have infinite ramifications in the present and future, as we see in Goldberg’s article. Yes, we all know I love me some English Renaissance, so the Marlowe article was particularly interesting to me. As an undergrad I learned of Marlowe and what my professor called his reputation as “the bad boy of the renaissance who was stabbed in the eye with his own dagger”—very Sapranos. So, when I read the article accusing him of being a homosexual, I wasn’t too surprised at the assumption knowing the society of the time. I don’t think of him as any less of an author, or any more for that manner; but I do think conservatists might feel the former when they read the article. So, my question for those would be, was he any less of an artist? any less of a contributor to the canon? Any less of a human being?
If so, then we must remove hundreds and hundreds of artists from the Western canon. Under such evidence that was used against Marlowe by Baines could also suggest that Shakespeare was a homosexual with is sonnets to a young man—are we then going to eradicate him as well? Maybe Shakespeare was part of Marlowe’s murder, only to use his pieces to jigsaw his own plays (The Jew of Malta is awful close to The Merchant of Venice which was acted a short few years after his death. . . hmmmm)
What I have the most problem with is the idea that someone’s personal preferences can marginalize them from society even if it does not affect the society around them. Making damaging accusations of one’s character with unfounded evidence is commonly known as McCarthyism (Instead of witches we are now conveniently hunting down anyone with Middle Eastern descent because they are all terrorists . . . . "it’s in their DNA”) After reading Barry, I now understand the motivation for lesbian feminists to break away from mainstream feminist theory and combat the misrepresentation of the movement. There will always be misconceptions and enemies will always exist; what we can do is educated those who have been misinformed.
“[R]ebellion never manages to find its own space; but always acts in the space that society has created for it” (Goldberg, 80)
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I think it's good that these brilliant men had homosexual tendencies. It means that, however much mainstream, conservative critics want to deny the fact of homosexual intellectuals and artists who actively contribute to the canon, there are resounding voices denying their denial (sort of like destructuring structures). They can deny the homosexuality factor, but they're just one voice, or one group of voices, and I am hoping that--soon--those voices will be seen the same way those little girls in Salem are seen now: as hysterical nonsense thought up by a bunch of bored teenagers (I just read Tony's blog...sorry).
ReplyDeleteI think that, beyond artists, however, that this movement of homosexual intellectualism has allowed a lot of people into roles of government, where they may not have been openly allowed before, which also makes the denial even more preposterous...To the thinking people.