What was the sexual orientation of writer William Shakespeare?

Answer 1

well he was married to Anne Hathaway, and there is some talk of him having many affairs. But then some question his sexuality because of a few of his sonnets. Honestly, does it matter? And how can we know, we weren't there.
God Bless!!

Answer 2

Well, William Shakespeare was married and fathered three children, but this proves nothing. He wrote 126 to a young beautiful man, who a lot of critics believed that he also had a relationship with him, and I believe that too, and if you looked at the sonnets you'll that he wrote only 26 sonnets to "a dark lady", it seems that he loved the young man better, beside keep an open eye on his plays, and you'll see a lot of homosexual undertones, such as Ganymede in 'As you Like It' or the relationship between Sebastian and Antonio in 'Twelfth Night', those are just two examples of many. So, yes I think Shakespeare was bisexual, but I also truly believe that the love of his life was a man, the young man of the sonnets. And those people who say that the amorous language of the sonnets was usual in the 16th century are absolutely wrong; there are only two similar examples of such language, and both are written for men, and everybody knew about the homosexuality of those poets.

Answer 3

People, he was heterosexual.

Geez.

There is no evidence that Shakespeare was anything other than heterosexual. Of course, there has been plenty of speculation, but it has been just that -- speculation. Most supporters of the bisexual Shakespeare look to this sonnets as proof, however during Shakespeare's time it was an accepted practice to write strong poems considering close male friendships. It is the culture of today to equate strong male friendship to homosexuality. The only explicit references to sexual acts and to physical lust occur in the Dark Lady sonnets.

Douglas Bush writes,

"Since modern readers are unused to such ardor in masculine friendship and are likely to leap at the notion of homosexuality… we may remember that such an ideal, often exalted above the love of women, could exist in real life, from Montaigne to Sir Thomas Browne, and was conspicuous in Renaissance literature".

Did you catch that? Friendships between males were prized more than the love of a woman. "Bros before..." well, you get the idea.

Answer 4

He was STRAIGHT. HETEROSEXUAL. That, or homosexual or bisexual. Nobody knows for sure.

Although Shakespeare wrote sonnets for specifically male audiences, that in itself is not enough to prove his homosexuality. In the olden days, people had Platonic relationships - affection without corporal consummation. People were close without being physically intimate. At least, that was the idea behind it.

Sheez. Now that homosexuality is okay to debate, it's like everybody and anybody famous is a potential homosexual. Leonardo da Vinci, Silvia Plath, and so on and so forth.

Look, these people lived so long ago that there's no conclusive way of proving their sexual orientation. And for goodness' sake, why do you even want to know? I see nothing in the real answer to this question that could possibly contribute to the greater good of this world, so just give it a rest.

BoRaphinBlue: Who DID you study under? I'm curious...maybe a little envious. :b

Answer 5

We know so little about him, there's no way to tell. The only signature we even have of is on his marriage certificate. There are even those who dispute that he was the one who wrote the plays, because it took such a lot of education to know the details in the plays. Some speculate that a member of Queen Elizabeth I's court wrote it, but used a pen name to hide the real authorship. This is possible, especially since one of the more literate members of the court had a family crest of two crossed (shaked) spears.

Answer 6

He was hetero. I know lots of so-called researchers are trying to make him a homo, but none have been very convincing. Of course he had male backers. Who had all the money in his time? Yes, he left his wife to go to London and the stage, but she was 10 years older than he was too. There's no evidence he left her for a man. Like I said, none of the arguments are very convincing. I think certain "researchers" are trying to justify their own "homo" status vicariously via Shakespeare.

Answer 7

It is widely speculated that W.S. was bisexual. His sonnets are written to both men and women on seperate occasions. He writes to the Dark Lady, and he writes to males in the same loving and sometimes sexual ways.

Answer 8

I believe that he was hetero. I know he was married, never heard on anything to the contrary.