630 Queer Shakespeare (with Will Tosh) | Ray Bradbury and the Search for the Mysterious Mr Electrico

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Books, Arts, History

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Was Shakespeare gay? Will Tosh, head of research at Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, says that question has an easy answer - but more importantly, when it comes to understanding Shakespeare's sexuality, it isn't really the right question to ask. In this episode, Jacke talks to Will about his book Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, which puts Shakespeare's artistry in the context of Elizabethan England's attitudes toward sex, intimacy, and identity. PLUS Jacke goes on the hunt for the mysterious carnival worker who inspired a young Ray Bradbury. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Hello, a look at Queer Shakespeare with Will Toshash ahead of her search at the heart of it all
0:15.8	Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London. Plus the search for the circus performer
0:21.7	who inspired Ray Bradbury.
0:24.2	All that today on the history of literature. Okay, hello, hello, hello, happy September to all you people all over the world.
0:38.0	Thank you for joining me today. I'm Jack Wilson, your host and soul proprietor, as William Faulkner might say, unless you count
0:46.8	producer Emma, who is a 50% partner in all things, Jack Wilson.
0:51.8	Emma and I are coming back from our trip to Norway and the Fjords and if those don't make you want to jump
0:56.7	into a wooden ship and row your way to Valhalla, I don't know what will.
1:01.7	They were inspiring. I grew up among Norwegians in my little Wisconsin town and I thought
1:07.6	why good people good neighbors? Good neighbors. Why did you ever leave this paradise? You had it all right here.
1:16.8	And you traded it in for two highways crossing on some of the blandest dirt on the planet.
1:26.6	The glaciers in Wisconsin didn't leave any mountains behind when they flattened my neck of the woods or any water, but it does have fertile farmland. And it turned out that Norway had been hit by the famous potato famine too.
1:39.0	In the 19th century, it put a lot of farmers out of work and Wisconsin was there saying
1:45.4	ville comin more or less okay let's move on we start today with Ray Bradbury
1:51.6	the popular author of Fahrenheit 451 and many other books and stories as well.
1:56.9	He was a writer who could crank it out, kind of a Stephen King type, I would say, someone who's not trying to win prizes so much as the
2:06.4	hearts and minds and attention of everyday readers.
2:10.8	And he was very good at it. He said once if Norman Miller liked me, I'd kill myself something like that
2:17.8	Didn't want the respect he didn't want to be a writer's writer wanted to be a reader's writer.
2:24.2	And so he would, that's not to say he was simple-minded or easy, his ideas are great, they flowed
2:30.8	out of him. Those ideas along with a sense of adventure and a sense of
	...

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