William Shakespeare: Gay, Straight, and Taken?

For the people who believe that William Shakespeare was a real person that wrote plays and sonnets with a stroke of sublimity, I’m going to show you why I think that William Shakespeare could totally have been gay. Even if you don’t think Shakespeare was an awesome writer, I’m still going to communicate why I think that Shakespeare could have been gay. I’m going to paint you all a portrait of my thoughts as well as the thoughts of the licensed experts and even unlicensed gossipers…to put it bluntly.

Before I began researching this topic, I had already heard that Shakespeare was gay. The reason: because he was an actor. Well, let’s begin by calling that rumor what it is- a stereotype. Considering the context, the stereotype that actors (or players as they were also called back in Shakespeare’s day) are gay can become easier to believe when one learns that only men were allowed to be actors. Since women weren’t permitted to act on stage, men played women’s roles. It’s been said by scholars and gossipers alike that the younger players would take on the roles of women and younger boys they could speak in a higher pitched voice than the puberty stricken players. Players probably cross-dressed more often than a trick yearned, burned, or was turned in a stew.

But, just because Shakespeare was part actor does not mean that he was gay…so I’m going to move on to the next reason why I think Shakespeare could have been gay: because researchers and writers with degrees for badges said so. That was a joke. But these professionals did bring up some good points that got me to questioning Shakespeare’s sexuality. I never questioned Shakespeare’s sexuality until after I read the dedication to Sonnet #3 as well as Sonnet # 3 in its entirety, and Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. Let’s begin with the sonnet. I’m going to show you all the sonnet so you can see it for yourselves, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet number three goes like this:

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another,

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewst

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose uneared womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

So thou through windows of thin age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

But if thou live remembered not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

So, according to the Arden text, sonnet #3 was dedicated to one of three people: William Herbert, Henry Wriothesley, or William Shakespeare. The reasoning behind this is that the sonnets were dedicated to a “Mr. W.H.” and the W.H. could have plausibly stood for either Herbert or Wriothesley, or the H could have been a misprint for an S.

If one were to juxtapose this sonnet with a certain play, a reproductive relationship emerges between the two. In the play Twelfth Night, the character Viola has been shipwrecked and is pretending to be a eunuch named Cesario, working for the Duke Orsino. As Cesario, Viola travels to Olivia’s home in hopes of wooing the lady for her boss, Duke Orsino. Viola flatters Olivia in hopes of encouraging her to have children. In Act 1, Scene 5, lines 235-237, Viola tells Olivia that, “Lady, you are the cruelest she alive / If you will lead these graces to the grave / And leave the world no copy.” If we look at lines 3-5 and 13-14 of the poem, and relationship of reproduction can be recognized because both the play and the poem encourages reproduction of a beautiful person that hesitates to reproduce. Before I conclude, I’d like to tip the script a bit and reflect my own sexuality. I’ve been analyzing Shakespeare’s, so it’s only fair to analyze my own. Let’s just say I wish I could be more bisexual, because I would have more options. But I’m not. I’m straight. I prefer one sex in particular: men.