WAS SHAKESPEARE GAY OR NOT?

The sexuality of English playwright William Shakespeare has been

the subject of debate.
-It is known from public records that he married Anne Hathaway,
when he was only eighteen, and that they had three children.
Scholars have analyzed their relationship through these
documents. However, there is a body of evidence to suggest that
Shakespeare was unfaithful in his marriage, so to determine if
Shakespeare was homosexual, we have to look beyond his
marriage.
-The reality is that it is impossible to determine Shakespeares
sexuality from his writing. All but a few sexuality references are
heterosexual in tone, yet theories have been built around the
exceptions. And at best, these are rather codified and ambiguous
references to homosexuality.
-Shakespeare may well have been homo- or heterosexual, but
there simply is no evidence to say either way.

-Some have speculated Shakespeare had affairs with other

women, based on written anecdotes of such affairs and
sometimes on the "Dark Lady" figure in his sonnets.
-The seductive Dark Lady who inspired some of Shakespear's
most famous and explicit sonnets has remained a mystery for
centuries.

-Now, one expert has claimed to have finally identified the elusive
woman, revealing her to be the wanton wife of an Italian
translator.
-The secret identity of Shakespeare's mistress has troubled
literary historians, who believe she inspired -sonnets 127 to 154
and some of his most memorable lines.
-Dr Aubrey Burl, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, now
believes she can be revealed as Aline Florio, the wife of an
Italian translator.
-Dr Burl, who spent years studying volumes of Shakespeare's own
work, biographies and previous papers, said he created a short-list
of eight possible candidates for the role of the Dark Lady,
including a landlady, a courtesan, beautiful young audience
members, and a wig-makers wife.
-However, some scholars have argued he was bisexual, based on
analysis of the sonnets: many, including Sonnet 18 "Shall I
compare thee to a summer's day", are love poems addressed
to a man, the "Fair Youth", and contain puns relating to
homosexuality. (a pun-a joke exploiting the different possible
meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound
alike but have different meanings).
-In the sonnet, the speaker compares his beloved to the summer
season, and argues that his beloved is better. He also states that
his beloved will live on forever through the words of the poem.

MARRIGE:At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old

Anne Hathaway. Six months after the marriage, they got a
daughter, Susanna. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith
followed almost two years later. Nevertheless, after only three
years of marriage Shakespeare left his family and moved to
London.
POSSIBLE AFFAIRS WITH WOMAN: While in London,
Shakespeare may have had affairs with different women. One
anecdote along these lines is provided by a lawyer named John
Manningham, who wrote in his diary that Shakespeare had a brief
affair with a woman during a performance of Richard III.
-Upon a time when Burbage played Richard the Third there was a
citizen grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from
the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the
name of Richard the Third. Shakespeare, overhearing their
conclusion, went before, was entertained and at his game were
Burbage came. Then, message being brought that Richard the
Third was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that
William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.
-The Burbage referred to is Richard Burbage, the star of
Shakespeare's company, who is known to have played the title
role in Richard III. While this is one of the few surviving

contemporary anecdotes about Shakespeareit was made in

March 1602, a month after Manningham had seen the playsome
scholars are sceptical of its validity. Still, the anecdote suggests
that at least one of Shakespeare's contemporaries (Manningham)
believed that Shakespeare was heterosexual, even if he was not
'averse to an occasional infidelity to his marriage vows' Indeed, its
significance has been developed to affording Shakespeare a
preference for "promiscuous women of little beauty and no
breeding" in his honest acknowledgement that well-born women
are beyond his reach.
-Other possible evidence of other affairs are that twenty-six of
Shakespeare's Sonnets are love poems addressed to a married
woman.
POSSIBLE ATTRACTION TO MEN: Shakespeare's sonnets are
cited as evidence of his bisexuality. The poems were initially
published, perhaps without his approval, in 1609. One hundred
and twenty-six of them appear to be love poems addressed to a
young man known as the 'Fair Lord' or 'Fair Youth.
-The identity of this figure (if he is indeed based on a real person)
is unclear; the most popular candidates are Shakespeare's patrons
,Henry Wriothesley (3rd Earl of Southampton) and William
Herbert(3rd Earl of Pembroke) both of whom were considered
handsome in their youth.
- The only explicit references to sexual acts or physical lust occur
in the Dark Lady sonnets, which unambiguously state that the
poet and the Lady are lovers. Nevertheless, there are numerous
passages in the sonnets addressed to the Fair Lord that have been
read as expressing desire for a younger man.
-Examples: 1. In Sonnet 13, he is called "dear my love".
2. in Sonnet 20 the narrator calls the younger
man the
"master- mistress of my passion".
3. In Sonnet 20: the narrator tells the youth to sleep with
women,
but to love only
him: "mine be thy love and
thy love's use their treasure".

4.Sonnet 52, the erotic punning is particularly intense: "So

is the
time that keeps you as my chest''
- Others have countered that these passages could be referring to
intense platonic friendship, rather than sexual love.
-Another explanation is that the poems are not autobiographical
but fiction, another of Shakespeare's "dramatic
characterization[s]", so that the narrator of the sonnets should
not be presumed to be Shakespeare himself.
In 1640,John Benson published a second edition of the sonnets
in which he changed most of the pronouns from masculine to
feminine so that readers would believe nearly all of the sonnets
were addressed to the Dark Lady. Benson's modified version soon
became the best-known text, and it was not until 1780 that
Edmund Malone re-published the sonnets in their original forms.
My personal opinion is that William Shakespeare was not gay, neither
bisexual because there is no real proof or evidence that he EVER had
any sexual intercourse with another man.
Most people judge and think that he was gay on the basis of his
sexual addressing to other males in his poetry. No one takes into
account that he wasn't in fact talking about himself in places where
they found the so-called homosexual insinuations.
Filip akovi II2