Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

By Jan Morris, 2001

Jan Morris finds Trieste a genial place where, like many others, she fits in and feels comfortable. I read this book thinking that it might be a relaxing place to visit for a few days after spending a busy week or two in Vienna. But Morris’ description makes me wonder if it might be too quiet. How many days do I want to spend drinking a quiet coffee by the harbour and walking out for a visit to contemplate one of the many small museums?

In truth, Morris says she has been drawn to Trieste many times over the years because of its quiet charm, welcoming people and slow pace. She does point out that in the 2000s, after she finished drafting the book, it has become more modern and linked into contemporary culture. In the twenty-first century, it has developed a vigorous growth in tourism, science, education, business. But Morris isn’t interested in that, and makes Trieste seem a sleepy town best suited for recuperation. I was in fact thinking of a quiet place to relax after my city vacation, but do I want something a little more stimulating?  

Morris describes the architectural highlights in a sympathetic way, suggesting that they complement the town with understated glory. The long history as a coastal town is best represented in the harbour and the remaining bourgeois palaces of the late Austrian empire. Trieste was the holiday resort for the middle class of Austria. It became an important sea port for central Europe until the Austrian empire fell apart and trading patterns shifted. It links the coast to the harsh environment of the surrounding karst mountains. And it has been a place where the Slavic peoples of the Balkans worked and lived together with the Italians and Austrians. James Joyce and other European figures spent significant parts of their lives here (often complaining of the weather and culture). But all this seems to be about a past time that has moved on.

Morris suggests that Trieste makes the most of a long-gone history, becoming an ideal spot for philosophical reflection. “The fundamental fact about modern Trieste, underlying all that happens here, is that it was built ad hoc – to be the principal port of the continental empire. Ever since that purpose was lost, the city has been trying to find substitute functions for itself… and has been more or less stagnant.” So says Morris. And yet she felt drawn to return several times to appreciate the pleasures of a slower life relaxing and wandering with no necessary destination. She can withdraw and contemplate what it means to be nowhere in particular.

I wonder if it is Morris’ attraction to the quietude that makes Trieste sound so sleepy. I have after all spent time visiting historic towns that a less sympathetic travel writer might call out-of-date backwaters. Lucca, Porto and other cities could be described in terms of their past histories and slow streets, although they are very vibrant with lots of street culture. And Trieste is well positioned for a daytrip to Venice or down the Illyrian coast.

I have friends who have recently visited Trieste, and found it surprisingly pleasant. It’s barely on the tourist list, which is a point in its favour. It may be just a matter of getting into the right frame of mind, as Morris suggests, enjoying the coffee and a convivial read rather than looking for romanticized features that in the end seem a bit disappointing.

Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare

By Will Tosh, 2024

I enjoy going to the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare festival every summer, and watching a play or two at the Globe Theatre when I’m in London. This book shows how the queer cultures in the England of the late 1500s shaped William Shakespeare’s life and are reflected in his writing.

Tosh says in the introduction to the book that, while it may be fruitless to speculate about Shakespeare’s sexuality, it is very rewarding to look at the queer settings in which he was working. He imagines several scenes to illustrate his themes: the idealized same-sex love in the Greek and Roman classics that school boys learned; the imagery and language (and abuse) around the boy actors on the London stages; the close male relationships among young men learning the law (or not) in the Inns of Court; and the explicit homoeroticism in the written poetry of Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries. However, as Tosh points out, while there clearly was a strong undercurrent of homoeroticism in Shakespeare’s milieu, there was also repression of homosexuality should it become too visible. This helps explain why Shakespeare limited its expression within acceptable limits of stage and print.

Tosh’s descriptions offer several perspectives new to me. It’s not surprising to read that sexual activity (and sexual abuse) was common among the boy choirs and the commercial stage companies, although I’ve not seen it discussed by Shakespeare historians. The references to homosexual activity among the Greeks and Romans are pretty widely known, although I didn’t realize how central it was to the education of young Elizabethan men. As Tosh says, it may have been idealized and downplayed by the instructors, but students know what is really going on. And Tosh shows how Shakespeare reflects this knowledge in his plays and poems. The fact that we’ve gone so long without acknowledging it really reflects mainly on the Victorian commentators who chose to bury it, and on the homophobia that shapes current perceptions.

A few years ago, I saw a production of “The Merchant of Venice” that showed the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio as a queer relationship. It had always seemed inexplicably overwrought as a close but straight friendship, but it makes much more sense as a queer relationship. Tosh’s explanation of idealized male friendship and partnership gives it meaning that helps understand Shakespeare’s other plays as well.

In addition to the sociological setting in which Shakespeare wrote, Tosh analyzes the influence of other writers. Marlowe’s queer history, “Edward II,” showed Shakespeare the possibility of bringing out universal human stories in the plays instead of stock characters. He also shows how the explicit homoeroticism of Shakespeare’s contemporary, Richard Barnfield, opened the possibilities of voicing queer male desire in the sonnets. While Barnfield was first valorized, then rejected, for his explicit queer poetry, Shakespeare’s often more ambiguous language escaped criticism. Tosh suggests that, after seeing how his society turned on Barnsfield, Shakespeare may have deliberately delayed publication of his sonnets, which for years circulated among friends in hand-copied sheets only. After the flamboyantly queer lifestyle of James I of England, a social crackdown on public expression of homosexuality led to censorship. Shakespeare retired to an affluent and comfortable home life in Stratford, perhaps unwilling to risk what he had won.

Tosh says his book “… has been an invitation to think honestly about Shakespeare’s evolution as a queer artist, to examine the factors that helped and hindered his growth, and to consider the ways his culture both endorsed and suppressed queer desire.” I think it succeeds in laying out a queer way to understand Shakespeare’s works in their historical context as well as in our times.