Shakespeare's True Love?

[Ganymede]

Recently someone passed an article on to me that I found most interesting.  

Apparently, a portrait has been found that shows the third Earl of Southhampton, Shakespeare's patron and possible lover, in drag-- wearing lipstick, rouge, and an earring and with long flowing hair.  Prior to this time, the portrait was thought to be of a woman, but recently someone discovered the remarkable resemblance between the "woman" in that portrait and a later portrait of the Earl.  After delving deeper, the facts seemed to fall into place, and experts now agree that the portrait is indeed that of the Earl (who was in his teens at the time of the portrait).  

The Earl of Southampton could very well be the "master-mistress" Shakespeare talks about in his early sonnets.  The portrait also further complicates notions of Shakespeare's sexuality.  If when he writes that the boy looked feminine he is speaking literally, what does that say about Shakespeare's erotic attractions?  Perhaps Shakespeare's sexuality is even more ambigous and flexible than previously thought.  

[shaxper]

I don't pretend to be an expert on sonnets.  My main interest has always been in the plays, but (correct me if I'm wrong), two important aspects of Shakespeare's sonnets were that:

1. He wrote them (at least partially) to get cash.  The Earl of Southhampton paid him nicely for his works, whereas playwrighting and acting paid next to nothing unless you owned a share in the company.

2. Sonnets were always about love.


Therefore, though Shaky may very well have been in love with his patron, isn't it also possible that Shaky was trying to come up with subjects for love poems (it must be hard to keep them fresh and original), was intrigued by the Earl's crossdressing, and decided to turn it into the subject of a love poem because

1. It had to be a poem about love
2. It might put him further in the Earl's favor and get him more money



There's no reason to believe that Shaky wasn't in love with the Earl, but aren't these also possible?  The evidence seems far from concrete.   While modern poetry is written as an inner and personal reflection, scholars often neglect to keep in mind that Shaky's sonnets were very public in nature, and were intended to please the patron more than to express an inner feeling.

[Bardolph]

Sonnets were about more than love.  They were about an ideal of love.  Many of WS's Sonnets lampoon this convention.  130 is a perfect example.  

If you accept that homosexuality didn't arise as a convention until later, they you should also accept that the segregation between masculine and feminine beauty likewise did not form until later.  It would probably not be scandalous for Southhampton to be depicted that way.  WS himself appears with long hair and an ear ring in the Chandos portrait, assuming that it's him.  

I'd like to hear more about the portrait.  I tend to reject, "experts now agree," as furtherance of an argument.  

I don't believe that the notion of homoeroticism in The Sonnets can survive a one by one reading and study of these works.  Again, that's not hostility against the idea.  The evidence just isn't there.  

[Harry]

I'm not hostile to the notion that Shakespeare might have been homosexual but, like Bardolph, I don't think the evidence is there. Take Sonnet 20, frequently cited as evidence. The third quatrain and the couplet seem, to me, to deny the possibility of homosexual sex. I understand that sex is not the only measure of homosexuality, but it must be considered as an important indicator. There is sex in the sonnets--heterosexual sex. Shakespeare and the Dark Lady--the Youth and the Dark Lady--but never Shakespeare and the Youth.

To me it seems that the sonnets are in a tradition where sex is sin and asexual love is the purest form of love. This was the idea of courtly love. The knight loved an impossible (for him) lady. Thus, sex could not sully their love. In the real world, of course, and in endless romances as well, nature had it's way and the unsullied love was sullied.

A purer form of asexual love can be found in the New Testament. God loved the World. Jesus loved John. Sex never seems part of it. It makes no difference what interpretation we might make of "the disciple Jesus loved." In Shakespeare's time it was understood as an asexual love.

Sonnet 144 most clearly expresses this duality of love. Love for the Youth is asexual and pure. Love for the Dark Lady is sexual and sinful.

[shaxper]

I'm still curious what others have to say about this. It made pretty big waves in the Shakespearean community, so I'm a tad surprised it isn't being discussed here.

[MelanieS]

Being a newbie, I must admit that I haven't read all the sonnets.

But I thought that the first 41 or so were directed at a man trying to encourage him to have children... hardly a homoerotic message.

Henry Wriothesly was rather bi-sexual, according to some writers, but whether this is based on the fact that he had practically no beard in his early twenties or on other, more solid reasons, is beyond me.

The painting you are talking about is not definitely considered to be the Earl...

Apparently, the Earl of Southampton was related to Shakespeare by marriage, around any number of corners, of course - a very distant cousin, an aunt of his mother marrying some Arden of Stratford who was related to Shakespeare's mother.

This thread has made me want to read all the sonnets in detail, and when I have, I'd like to come back and post a reply...

MelanieS

[shaxper]

No need to go away!

We're going through the sonnets one by one in these discussions, reading them for the first times ourselves. Stck around and learn with us

[Harry]

Yeah, and Sonnet 144 is next. That should be a good one for this topic.

Sonnets 1-17 are often called the procreation sonnets and, yes, the message isn't a very homoerotic one.

I wouldn't think the absence of a beard makes a man bisexual. Maybe he had shaved?

Hmmm... I hadn't heard about the connection between Southampton and Shakespeare's mother. But it must have been distant. Mary Arden Shakespeare was only distantly related to the landowning Ardens. John Shakespeare made a big deal of the relationship in his application for a Coat-of-Arms, but I don't think that modern historians think too highly of his geneology.

Definitely stick around. I'd like to see some of you comments about the individual sonnets. I've been going through them one-by-one, posting the sonnet and some starter commentary. I'm interested in what others think.