Homosexuality In William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Can you imagine being forced to hide your true self, identity, feelings, and desires from the world in fear that you might be executed? That is exactly how Shakespeare had to live in his time period. Sonnet 135 by William Shakespeare is a coded poem that secretly expresses the author’s homosexual attraction. He uses homoerotic depictions, transgressive sexuality, and gay signs to secretly express is homosexual emotions in a seemingly heterosexual poem. It is clarified in earlier sonnets that this poem is addressing Henry Wriothesley, who loves The Dark Lady. This is the man Shakespeare secretly has a sexual attraction to. First and foremost, Shakespeare uses many homoerotic depictions throughout his sonnet to confess his attraction for Wriothesley. He uses imagery that depicts man on man sex, such as “Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, / Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?” (Lines 5 and 6). These lines describe him putting his penis inside of Wriothesley. This tells us that

During Shakespeare’s time period in England, it was illegal to be gay. Man on man intercourse was punishable by death, so attractions such as Shakespeare’s had to be kept secret. Shakespeare did this by using gay signs that, during this time, wouldn’t have been noticeable to someone who wasn’t homosexual. An example of a gay sign that was used is “More than enough am I that vexed thee still, / To thy sweet will making addition thus.” (Lines 3 and 4). Although today, we may be able to identify this as Shakespeare pleading to have sex with Wriothesley, back in his day that was much less obvious to the average person. Only someone who was homosexual or had experience with these feelings would understand what Shakespeare actually meant. A heterosexual person would have just assumed that Shakespeare was confessing his emotions to a