Olivia! O!

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out “Olivia!” O! You should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth,
But you should pity me!

The painting by Pickersgill depicts Viola as Cesario, with Olivia, the Countess, smitten by Viola and her words.

Jami Ake reads "female-female desire" in Olivia and Viola's Act I, Scene 5, Twelfth Night exchange. She argues that Viola explores "a tentative 'lesbian' poetics." [Ake, Jami. "Glimpsing a 'Lesbian' Poetics in Twelfth Night." SEL. Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 43.2 (2003): 375-394]

Gillian Hanscombe and Suniti Namjoshi wrote about lesbian poetry in "Lesbian Histories and Cultures" edited by Bonnie Zimmerman: "... its proper reading requires a major reassessement of the assumptions brought to the reading of mainstream poetry... Reading poetry involves continually placing the poem in new contexts."

Shakespeare biographer, Steven Greenblatt: "The work is so astonishing, so luminous, that it seems to have come from a god and not a mortal, let alone a mortal of provincial origins and modest education." How about a highly educated countess with access to the royal court?

What do you think? Was Shakespeare written by a woman? Do you have any evidence that Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, could not have written Shakespeare?

~ Mary