Sunday Times 2
Was Shakespeare gay?
A new debate has broken out between some of the world’s top Shakespeare experts over whether the playwright’s sonnets prove he was attracted to men.
Sir Brian Vickers, a visiting professor at University College London, began the row by condemning a book review which suggested Sonnet 116 appears in a ‘primarily homosexual context’.
In a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, he said the claim was ‘anachronistic’ because scholars now accept there were forms of rhetoric that allowed men to express love without implying sexual attraction.
He also said that any attempt to find biographical information in the sonnets was doomed because Shakespeare was a professional who wrote under the identity of a ‘poet-persona’.
Professor Sir Brian Vickers started the debate over playwright William Shakespeare's (pictured) sexuality after condemning a book review which suggested Sonnet 116 appears in a 'primarily homosexual context' (REUTERS)
Fellow academics have since hit back at Mr Vickers’ comments, accusing him of promoting ‘one of the great fallacies of modern Shakespeare criticism’.
Scholar Arthur Freeman, who described himself as a ‘friendly acquaintance’ of Mr Vickers when responding to him via the letters page, accused him of introducing ‘presuppositions that many of us would question, if not reject out of hand’.
He wrote: ‘I cannot think of any responsible editor … who would dismiss the premise of homosexual, as well as heterosexual passion pervading [the sonnets].
‘Why should Shakespeare alone be thought so committed to the “negative capability” of his dramatic craft that all his most personal writings are treated as potentially artificial?
‘And even if we insist on regarding the sonnets, wholly or in part, as a kind of long-term dramatic narrative … why on earth would Shakespeare choose so often to impersonate a pathetically ageing, balding, lame and vulnerable bisexual suitor, abjectly whingeing about rejection and betrayal – unless the self-humiliation that surfaces again and again through these particulars were both genuine and cathartic?’
Another academic, who wrote under the name Professor Wells, also responded to the letter, pointing out that Shakespeare used at least one sonnet to woo Anne Hathaway.
He said: ‘When a poet whose name is William writes poems of anguished and unabashed sexual frankness which pun on the word “will” – 13 times in [Sonnet] No 135 … it is not unreasonable to conclude that he may be writing from the depths of his own experience.’
Mr Vickers responded by saying he could not stop people from speculating, adding: ‘Thought is free.
‘But if you fix these codes and then say that his 126 poems are like this, then people stop reading them as poems. They read them as biographical documents, looking for imputed sexuality.’
He said there was ‘no bad blood’ but has written a second letter in which he claims Professor Wells has too much insight into Shakespeare’s motives.
‘Such figments of the critic’s imagination not only produce quantities of waste paper but … are inimical to the proper reading of poetry,’ he said.
The row is the latest debate over the sexuality of the playwright.
The first edition of his sonnets were dedicated to a ‘Mr W H’, whose identity has never been proven – leading to claims it could have been a male lover.
The most likely candidates were often thought to have been his friends Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, or William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
Oscar Wilde explored a different theory, writing a fictional 1889 story about whether it could be a cross-dressing boy actor called Willie Hughes – and the same person as the ‘fair youth’ of the sonnets.
That could also help explain punning references to the name ‘Will’, it was claimed.
Although there are few references to anything other than noble love, some sonnets appear more explicit than others.
Sonnet 20 is largely interpreted as being dedicated to a man, declaring: ‘A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted / Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion.’
In 2012, Shakespearean actor Sir Ian McKellen boldly announced that there was absolutely ‘no doubt’ the bard was bisexual.
The Lord of the Rings star said he was adamant Shakespeare preferred sex with men even though he was married with children. The 75-year-old acclaimed thespian said he came to his conclusion after studying the English poet’s work.
At the time, he said: ‘I’d say Shakespeare slept with men.
‘The Merchant of Venice, centering on how the world treats gays as well as Jews, has a love triangle between an older man, younger man and a woman.
‘And the complexity in his comedies with cross-dressing and disguises is immense.
‘Shakespeare obviously enjoyed sex with men as well as women.’
It is widely accepted that Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway when he was 18.
Six months after the marriage, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, who was baptised on May 26, 1583.
Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised on February 2, 1585.
© Daily Mail, London
| SONNET 116: REVIEW CLAIMS IT HAS ‘PRIMARILY HOMOSEXUAL CONTEXT’ Let me not to the marriage of true minds A mystery that has never been solved Oscar Wilde called gay attraction ‘the love that dare not speak its name’, and that’s one of the reasons why it has sparked so many debates – it just isn’t written down. Instead of the modern references to same-sex love found in everything from poems to EastEnders, authors danced around the subject and rarely made their intentions clear. Even in the early 1900s gay authors such as E M Forster and Christopher Isherwood censored themselves, only releasing full accounts towards the end of their lives – and in the case of Forster’s Maurice, after they were dead. Renaissance England is more complicated. Society 500 years ago had more fluid ideas about gender, with cross-dressing actors and a more lavish, flamboyant dress sense for men. But there are strong hints as his wife Isabella proclaims:‘He’ll ever dote on Gaveston; And so am I for ever miserable.’ And the king is killed with a red-hot poker, which Medieval writers later claimed was inserted into his anus as an act of retribution. Renaissance authors were also reliant on Greek texts, which had very different ideas about gay sex than those which are discussed today. Instead it was seen as a temporary relationship, of a different type to that between a man and a woman, which came to an end when the younger man matured and went out to find a wife. |