Sonnet 35 - Homosexuality in Shakespeare's Sonnet 35

Homosexuality in Shakespeare's Sonnet 35

Sonnet 35 deals with the speaker being angry with the young man for an apparent betrayal through infidelity. The apparent homoeroticism between the speaker and the young man has spurred debates about the sexuality of the speaker and consequently Shakespeare himself. There are 3 main points to discuss with this issue: the problem of ambiguity in the writing, the possibility of applying an anachronistic view of love and consequently mistaking these sonnets homoerotic, and finally the implications of Shakespeare’s life and homosexual tendencies.

The Ambiguity of the Texts

Paul Hammond argues the difficulty in pinning down the sexual language lies in the intentional ambiguity. First, one must keep in mind that in the early modern period the death penalty was still in effect for sodomy, so it was extremely important that writers remain vague to protect their own lives. Keeping the language ambiguous enabled multiple interpretations of the writings without the danger of being branded as homosexual. What is more, the words we would use to describe homosexual behavior is either anachronistic to the time period or it carried different meanings. For example, there is no seventeenth-century equivalent word for homosexual. Additionally, “sodomy” and “sodomite” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have a radically different meaning than modern perceptions. It is not clear if sodomy even had any specific representation of sexual behavior between men. It could be used for sexual activity between men, women, or either sex and an animal. It can also be used as a rhetorical device to establish the unacceptable foreignness of an enemy.

To further confuse things, even the meaning of “friend” is subject to scrutiny. “Friend” can be used to greet a complete stranger, it can mean someone of the same sex that is an extremely close friend, and it can even be used to describe a man and a woman in love. In the same respect, lover can be meant to have sexual connotations or just imply a strong platonic friendship. Hammond states, “The words ‘love’, ‘lover’, and ‘friend’ in the Sonnets have no single or unambiguous meanings, but are continually being redefined, refelt, reimagined." He also states, “Sometimes indications of sexual desire are present not in the form of metaphor or simile, but as a cross-hatching of sexually charged vocabulary across the surface of a poem whose attention seems to lie elsewhere."

Misinterpretation of Love

Carl D. Atkins argues that readers are misinterpreting the type of love depicted in the sonnets as homosexual. He believes that we must look at it with an eye that considers the concepts of love in Shakespeare’s time. He sees the relationship between the speaker and the young man as a passionate friendship that is more pure than heterosexual relationships and in some cases can even take precedence over marriage. He puts an emphasis in distinguishing between intellectual lover, or love of the mind, and animal love, or love of the body. The sonnets are writing about a pure platonic form of love and modern readers are injecting too much sexual politics into his or her criticism. Atkins sees the sonnets more as a chronicle of underlying emotions experienced by lovers of all kinds whether it is heterosexual, homosexual or passionate friendship: adoration, longing, jealousy, disappointment, grief, reconciliation, and understanding.

Homosexual Implications for Shakespeare’s Life

Stephen Booth considers the sonnets in the context of Shakespeare’s personal sexuality. First, he discusses the dedication of sonnets 1-126 to “Mr. W. H.” Booth considers Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, and William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke as the best candidates. Both men work with the idea that the sonnets are being addressed to a man of high rank and both were considered to be attractive. However, the dedication remains mostly a mystery. Some theories even point to the dedication being to Shakespeare himself.

In regards to the sonnets having a bearing on Shakespeare’s sexuality, Booth maintains the sonnets are written as a form of fiction. He believes the hermaphroditic sexual innuendos are being overanalyzed and misinterpreted to point towards Shakespeare’s own sexuality. In reality, it was commonplace for sexual wordplay to switch between genders. He writes, “Moreover, Shakespeare makes overt rhetorical capital from the fact that the conventions he works in and the purpose for which he uses them do not mesh and from the fact that his beloveds are not what the sonnet conventions presume them to be." Booth maintains that sonnets involving wooing a man are in fact an attempt of Shakespeare to exploit the conventions of sonnet writing. Overall, Booth asserts that the sexual undercurrents of the sonnets are of the sonnets and do not say anything about the sexuality of Shakespeare.