Sexuality of William Shakespeare Sexuality of William Shakespeare The sexuality of William Shakespeare has been the subject of recurring debate. It is known from public records that he married Anne Hathaway and that they had three children; scholars have analysed their relationship through these documents, and particularly through the bequests to her in Shakespeare's will. Some have speculated Shakespeare had affairs with other women, based on contemporaries' written anecdotes of such affairs and sometimes on the "Dark Lady" figure in his sonnets. Some scholars have argued he was bisexual, based on analysis of the sonnets: many, including Sonnet 18 "Shall I compare thee to
Shakespeare apocrypha from unsold copies of the 1612 edition. This poem was published as an appendix to Shakespeare's sonnets in 1609. Its authorship has been disputed by several scholars. In 2007 Brian Vickers, in his monograph, "Shakespeare, "A Lover's Complaint", and John Davies of Hereford", attributes the "Complaint" to John Davies. Other scholars continue to attribute it to Shakespeare. "To the Queen" is a short poem praising Queen Elizabeth, probably recited as an epilogue to a royal performance of a play. It was first attributed to Shakespeare by American scholars William Ringler and Steven May, who discovered the poem in 1972 in