The Bisexuality of Shakespeare's Sonnets and Implications for de Vere's Authorship

My goal in this paper is to explore blind spots in previous scholarship on Shakespeare's sonnets, using a psychoanalytic perspective to do so. My central claim is that these sonnets reflect the poet's bisexuality. I believe the author of Shakespeare's works was the bisexual Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604), who was first proposed as “Shakespeare” in 1920, and whose claim to authorship soon gained Freud's steadfast support. Controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare generates lively debate. But his bisexuality has been strikingly ignored, covered up, or rationalized away by the vast majority of Shakespeare scholars for the past 400 years—including by those who believe, with Freud, that de Vere was the pseudonymous author of Shakespeare's works. Exploring this topic with an open mind suggests that we have been the victims of severe distortions and blind spots in previous Shakespeare scholarship. Many of these distortions have been fueled by homophobia.

The intense admiration some people feel toward Shakespeare makes them uneasy with the possibility that he was bisexual. One solution to this cognitive dissonance for the past four centuries has been denial or avoidance of Shakespeare's bisexuality, and of his actual identity. It is time to rectify this cultural blind spot. Many people who are prejudiced feel ashamed once their bias becomes fully conscious (Westen, 2007).