by Jinny Webber | Jan 25, 2018 | Christopher Marlowe, Gender fluidity, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
“Perhaps I shall write about a Ganymede. Thus would Neptune discover a swimmer on the shore: Leander, so lovely that he might be a maid in man’s attire.” Christopher Marlowe, after seeing Sander fresh from swimming and thinking him a boy....
by Jinny Webber | Jan 19, 2018 | Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England
“You’re the one who inspired me.” [Kate says to her brother Johnny] “Me?” “Your knowledge. Your Ovid that you taught me to read, all those fantastical transformations. Now I shall have one myself.” “Into a boy.” He...
by Jinny Webber | Oct 29, 2017 | Boy actors on Shakespeare's stage, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England
My first stage kiss, given me by Suffolk, I accepted as Margaret awakening to her potential: “That for thyself; I will not so presume/ To send such peevish tokens to a king.” Sander Cooke, Chapter XI, The Secret Player Near the conclusion of her chapter on...
by Jinny Webber | Aug 8, 2017 | Boy actors on Shakespeare's stage, Christopher Marlowe, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England
Whatever you may have heard, not every boy gains my attentions. For all his honey-gold hair, Jack charms me not. But you.” Marlowe looked at me sorrowfully. “A girl!” “Enough to damn me?” “Not to damn you. But I don’t make love to girls and cannot imagine it now, for...
by Jinny Webber | Aug 3, 2017 | Boy actors on Shakespeare's stage, Gender fluidity, Sex and Gender in, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
“What? Shall I have my son a stager now? An ingle for players?” Ben Jonson, Poetaster How much would a boy actor be pressured sexually? And by whom? Sander Cooke, knowing that in her boy’s garb she will be desired by both men and women, determines to be admired...
