William Shakespeare Homosexual

“A Womans face with natures owne hand painted, / Haste thou, the Master Mistris of my passion” (lines 1-2) is the start to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 20,” which has most critics riddled about Shakespeare’s sexuality. Within the first quatrain, the sonnet leads the reader to believe the speaker is talking about a woman; however, in the last three lines the gender of the subject is revealed to be a man. Critics debate whether or not Shakespeare himself is a homosexual because of the way his sonnets are written and to whom they are about. In “Sonnet 20,” Shakespeare’s sexuality is questioned by critics, who focused mainly on the word play used, the Renaissance Era’s societal norms, and the difference between action and emotion of the speaker towards the subject. The word play used in “Sonnet 20” has …show more content…
To begin with, one critic argues that [By “adding one thing” (line 12), an extra unstressed half-foot, Shakespeare plays with the form of the sonnet to reinforce the sonnet’s theme of sexual ambiguity] (Stackhouse, 2007). This critic implies that the word play in “Sonnet 20” “indicates the gender-bending of the sonnet’s subject matter,” which hints at the subject’s gender; the gender being revealed as a man at the end of sonnet (2007). Stackhouse (2007) noticed that the ends of each line have a feminine rhyme, which gender-bends the subject and creates sexual ambiguity. To go along with line 12, in lines 12-14, another critic suggests that it is a homosexual cry from the speaker because of their passion for intercourse with the man who he loves (Charles, 1998). The “lyric suggestiveness” of those lines seem debatable; furthermore, the critic recommends those lines could also be the speaker’s