William Shakespeare Research Paper

The presence of homoerotic references in the works of William Shakespeare was a direct result of the Elizabethan attitude 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 homosexuality. Given the freedom to express himself uninhibitedly, Shakespeare cast aside the homophobia of his age and inscribed love sonnets for another male, Mr. W.H. This unrestricted honesty created great tension and drama between Shakespeare and his adversary, the dark lady as well as fueling some of the greatest love poems of all time. Over hundreds of years, it comes to no surprise that many scholars have found the sonnets effective in revealing insight into the biography of William Shakespeare. The emotional pressure contained in many of the sonnets and the fact that many, if not all, are dedicated to a man named ‘Mr. W.H.', provide important clues to Shakespeare's life. It begins with the sonnets' dedication, 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.
The randomness of their order leads scholars such as Northrop Frye to question their validity 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 addressed to a woman. The question now at hand is; are the feelings expressed in the sonnets a celebration of homosexual love? And if so, how could such feelings emerge in a time where homosexuality had no place in social life (Taylor,