‘The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action,’ he writes in Sonnet 129. “Homosexuality wasn’t much punished in Shakespeare’s day,” Professor Wells says, “unless it involved a minor or servants – Francis Bacon was prosecuted for the latter – but Shakespeare was certainly concerned with the dichotomy between lust and love. Forbidden love is a painful subject of which Shakespeare writes regularly and we may assume he felt often.” “People denied their relationships because of social status and sexual identity.
“For Southampton, it’s to do with his appreciation of Shakespeare as an artist.” Southampton loves Shakespeare profoundly, but not in the way Shakespeare wants him to. “For Will, it’s romantic love,” says Branagh. Talking in private after dark, Shakespeare confesses his love for Southampton, reciting one of the sonnets he wrote for him: “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings that then I scorn to change my state with kings.” In the film, Anne Hathaway is not pleased when the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen) comes to pay Shakespeare a visit. One of the dedications talks about ‘the love I bear to your lordship’ and it’s not implausible to suggest there may have been a sexual relationship between them.” The first works published are two poems dedicated to the Earl Of Southampton, a very beautiful young man. “He must have been working with a touring theatre company, and we can imagine the temptations available to a young man in that situation. “Shakespeare’s years in London between his marriage to Anne and his emergence on the theatrical scene in 1592 are often referred to as the lost years because we as historians know so little about them,” says Professor Stanley Wells, author of Shakespeare, Sex and Love. Love letters: it's thought that Shakespeare felt forbidden love often Forbidden love So who was the ‘Dark Lady’ addressed in Sonnets 127 to 154, and the ‘Fair Youth’ to whom the first 126 were addressed? Who else was Shakespeare in love with, if not his wife? “I’d be pretty beady when he came home if I thought about the Dark Lady of the sonnets.”
“She must have got wind of something,” says Dench. “When the most celebrated writer of his day published love poems to people other than his wife, it must have caused the same kind of speculation then as it would now,” says screenwriter Ben Elton. Wife Anne Hathaway (Judi Dench) feels neglected after long years apart – and while he has written famously about love, his most passionate sonnets were addressed to someone else. His fortune is secure, but his love life is complicated. But when it comes to his love life, how much do we really know about the great man?Īll Is True begins with William Shakespeare (played by Kenneth Branagh) returning to family life in Stratford after a fire destroys the Globe Theatre in London in 1613. William Shakespeare’s life is a story of love, loss and wisdom.