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The concept of “queer pregnancy” is often largely ignored by scholars in studying the various works of Shakespeare, according to a new book by Professor Alicia Andrzejewski at the College of William & Mary.
Professor Andrzejewski, assistant professor in the English Department, has spent much of her time in academia understanding the relationship of queer theory in contemporary society, according to her online bio.
She writes on her personal website that she is “a scholar of early modern literature and culture; queer, feminist, and critical race theory; and the medical humanities.”
Her latest book, “Queer Pregnancy in Shakespeare’s Plays,” challenges “the assumptions in queer theory that only straight women get pregnant, that every pregnancy ends in the birth of a healthy, legitimate child, and that pregnancy always reproduces the family in a recognizable form,” according to its abstract.
“These frameworks not only dull the transgressive force of pregnancy in Shakespeare’s work and the expansive ways in which early moderns thought about the pregnant body, but contribute to the erasure of so many lived experiences of pregnancy in our current, cultural imagination,” it adds.
Andrzejewski’s focus lies largely in queer theory, an ideological framework coined in the 1990s in which scholars apply contemporary theories to classical literary texts like Shakespeare.
For example, Boston College hired Dawn Meredith Simmons in late 2024, who was described by the college as “a trailblazer in fighting racism and encouraging diversity in the theater community,” to teach a class that interpreted the “theme of identity” in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
Andrzejewski declined to be interviewed with The College Fix, but wrote in an email: “I believe Shakespeare and all of the classics are for everyone. That’s what makes a classic—that so many people can relate to it and see themselves in it, across differences. My reading of Shakespeare’s plays is far from the definitive reading. It’s simply the one I had to offer.”
One chapter, for example, looks at Ophelia in “Hamlet,” and in particular whether the character used an herb as an abortifacient.
“A close read of how critics have argued for or against the potential Ophelia is pregnant speaks not only to the still-taboo nature of abortion but the problem of what counts, traditionally, as evidence,” the professor wrote. “For this reason, I argue that queer theorists who write about queer methodologies and what counts as evidence help not only to uncover more potential references to pregnancy in the play but also challenge us to consider more heretical possibilities when it comes to Ophelia and all of Shakespeare’s plays.”
In another chapter she tackles “Titus Andronicus.”
“From gestational erasure, then, Shakespeare urges audiences to consider the beastly, ‘detested vale’ in Titus Andronicus—Tamora’s pregnant, animal body—that conceives and breeds and generates a queer future,” she wrote.
Asked to weigh in, Peter Herman, a professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University, told The College Fix that “the term ‘queer’ is so expanded from its original referent (a slur concerning homosexuality) that it comes to mean any kind of transgressive or challenging reading.”
For some scholars, especially those in the realm of classical literature, imposing modern theoretical frameworks on classical texts seems unavoidable.
“We are always going to read from our own standpoint, and not from how a person in the sixteenth century would understand something,” Herman said. “For example, for a long time critics and readers assumed that ‘Othello’ was all about jealousy, nothing about race. But today, it’s all about race. The same goes for paying attention to colonialism and ‘The Tempest.’”
For Herman, it is not always a bad practice to apply modern concepts to older literature. Particularly in the context of Renaissance texts, he said this practice is generally permissible because “that [practice] can often reveal something that previous generations missed.”
According to Professor Herman, there aren’t limits on applying contemporary theories to older texts, except for “imposing readings that are manifestly anachronistic.”
“It’s pretty clear that Antonio in Merchant has feelings for Bassanio that are not reciprocated, and he constantly wants to privilege male-male relationships over male-female relationships. That’s in the text. Are those feelings sexual in nature? That’s pure speculation,” Herman said.
However, when trying to understand if queer theory helps individuals better understand Shakespeare, or if its purpose in literary analysis tells us something about the concerns of contemporary academia, Herman said probably not.
“[I]mposing a contemporary sense of sexuality onto the play is likely to yield unhelpful readings,” he said.
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