Exploring Sexuality with William Shakespeare Essay

The presence of homoerotic references in the works of William Shakespe be was a direct result of the Elizabethan carriage towards sex during the English Renaissance. Within the privacy of the sonnets, Shakespeare could effusively express a passion that the Elizabethan Era, with its social mores, stifled greatly as it frowned upon queerity. disposed(p) the freedom to express himself uninhibitedly, Shakespeare cast aside the homophobia of his age and inscribed dear sonnets for another male, Mr. W. H.This unrestricted h unmatchedsty created great tension and drama mingled with Shakespeare and his adversary, the dark lady as well as fueling dickens(prenominal) of the greatest cognize poems of every last(predicate) clipping. Over hundreds of years, it comes to no surprise that more scholars have found the sonnets effective in revealing insight into the memorial of William Shakespeare. The emotional pressure contained in many of the sonnets and the circumstance that many, if no t all, are dedicated to a man named ? Mr. W. H. , provide important clues to Shakespeares life.It begins with the sonnets allegiance, a passage written by Shakespeare that opens a world of controversy amongst scholars. The dedication runs as follows To. The. Only. Begetter. Of These. Ensuing. Sonnets. Mr. W. H. All. Happiness. And. That. Eternity. Promised. By. Our. Ever. Living. Poet. Wisheth. The. Well. Wishing. Adventurer. In. Setting. Forth. T. T. (Shakespeare, 1490) The initials T. T. at the conclusion of the dedication refer to Thomas Thorpe, the airplane pilot publisher of the sonnets (http//andrejkoymasky. com/liv/sha/sha00. html). However, one question remains, who is Mr. W. H?During the English Renaissance, it was everyday for members of high social standings to hire established writers and poets to create masterful relish sonnets and other works of literature for their entertain workforcet. For a large portion of his vainglorious life, Shakespeare spent his time writ ing sonnets for an upper class family, specifically for a young man (Rowse, 96). The beginning sonnets describe a ? sockly juvenility and it is believed that over time, Shakespeares sonnets became more personal as the relationship betwixt him and his patron intensified.Scholars have professed that this patron could in incident be the besides begetter of the sonnets, Mr.W. H, or William Hughes. The majority of the sonnets were written between 1593 and 1596, however, they were not create until 1609 and then further edited in 1640, long after Shakespeares death (Auden, 86). The randomness of their order leads scholars such as Northrop Frye to question their stiffness in accurately capturing real life happenings (Fleperin, 96).The publisher who replicated the sonnets in 1640 actually changed the pronouns in sonnets 15 through 126 to make it seem as if the poems were intercommunicate to a woman. The question now at hand is are the feelings denotative in the sonnets a celebratio n of homosexual love?And if so, how could such feelings come forward in a time where homosexuality had no place in social life (Taylor, 39)? The sixteen hundreds were a time of strict determine and high standards of living. At this time, embracing sexuality was not encouraged and skeptical ones sexuality was not an option. During the English Renaissance it was common for men to have a bun in the oven their hair long and dress in silks and ruffles (Taylor, 45). World renowned professor, Edward Hubler, create his book, The Sense of Shakespeares Sonnets, in which he points out the Elizabethan men used the term lover between men without embarrassment (Hubler, 17). seed C. L. Barber, in his essay on Shakespeares Sonnets, reminds us that the suppressed roles of women in Elizabethan society kept them out of the theater, forcing men to play the roles of women in many of Shakespeares productions at the Globe Theater. This openness is most attributed to Shakespeares sexual curiosity, and because his masculinity was neer in doubt, his sexual awakening rapidly progressed. To truly grasp Shakespeares feelings for Mr. W. H, we must refer to sonnet twenty, which is the setoff in the serial publication to address the mysterious love affair.Despite the fact that male friendships were openly affectionate, the sonnets powerful emotions are indicative of a deeper love (Cross, 1,490). Line two of the poem describe the subject as the master-mistress of his passion. indemnify away we sense a contrast between the love for a man and the love for a women. Shakespeare makes it known in lines eight and nine-spot of the sonnet, that W. H was in fact created for a womans love and affection, telling his readers that his subject is male. Further into the poem he describes his acceptance of that fact that he was defeated by nature, but continues to acknowledge their love (Cross, 1,4940).Shakespeares persistence in his attempt to win over the heart of his closeness is noted in sonn ets 135-137 (Cross, 1511,1512). It is here that Shakespeare emphasizes the name ? Will as seen in italics in nearly every line. It is at this point in the series where it is suspected that the poets love for W. H is being threatened by a woman. In attempts to re-establish the ? dark lady in relation to Mr. W. H, scholars have examine specific sonnets in which her character is revealed. We find that the twenty-five sonnets dedicated to a woman, the dark lady, dwell on her imperfections and falsehoods (Barber, 16).For example, in sonnet 127, Shakespeare devotes his energy to expressing a lower love toward the woman and a higher love toward the man. It is not until the later sonnets that Shakespeare begins to feel threatened by the dark lady, and begins to depict a competition for the heart of W. H. In sonnet 138, Shakespeare is almost trying to convert W. H that this woman could never love him in the manner that he was willing to (Cross, 1,870). Shakespeares main concern, in the mids t of anguished humiliation, is to advance the mans love, not the womans.Shakespeares inner conflict expressed in his works evidently developed during a time when his life, outside of the ? dark lady and W. H, was relatively normal, and this is another reason as to why the sequence of the sonnets is so important. As we know, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582. She gave ingest to his children soon after. Was this heterosexual fantasy life all a gallop up for the love he shared with W. H? Because no one has been able to figure out the correct order of the sonnets we will never know precisely when these love affairs took place.To label Shakespeare a homosexual would be ignorant, only because the consummation of the love between the poet and his muse was never proven. We can only base our knowledge of his curiosity on the circumscribe of the sonnets, and with that we can gather that Shakespeare was involved in affairs, not necessarily physical, with both a young man, Mr. W. H, and a reticent woman, the Dark Lady. The conflict involving these two characters sparked the fire that fueled the ingenious works of one of the greatest poets of all time, Mr. William Shakespeare. Auden, W. H.Lectures on Shakespeare. raw(a) Jersey Princeton University Press. 2000. Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare The Invention of the Human. New York Riverhead Books. 1998. Cross, Wilbur, L. The Yale Shakespeare. New York Barnes and baronial Books. 1993. Hubler, Edward. The Sense of Shakespeares Sonnets. New Jersey Princeton University Press. 1952 Hugh, Calvert. Shakespeares Sonnets and Problems of Autobiography. Braunton Merilin Books, 1987. Holland, Norman. Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare. New York McGraw Hill Book Company. 1966 Pitt, Angela. Shakespeares Women.New Jersey Barnes and Noble Books. 1981 Rowse, A. L. The Elizabethan Renaissance The Life of the Society. New York Charles Scribers Sons. 1971. Taylor, Gary. Reinventing Shakespeare. New York Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1989. meshw ork Sources http//www. onlineshakespeare. com/sonnetsabout. htm http//andrejkoymasky. com/liv/sha/sha00. html http//infopt. demon. co. uk/shakespe. htm http//www. shakespeares-sonnets. com/wilde. htm http//aspirations. english. com. ac. uk/converse/essays/cgonda/loves. acds http//eserver. org/emc/1-2/halpern. html.