In Good Gay Company

When you see an article about the Top 10 great people in history who might be gay, the question is not whether Shakespeare will be on the list but what number he’ll come in at.

In this case, the author has him at #10.  No big surprises and no editorializing, either.  In fact his case is full of “people think” logic, primarily about the sonnets.  Nothing new under the sun:

The only indication that Shakespeare could have been gay was his sonnets, which were not intended for publication. A huge fraction of these sonnets address his love for, they say, a young man. If you read them, you’ll be blown away by the intense romantic feelings in them that would really make anyone easily conclude that the poet was actually involved in a homosexual affair.

What I love, though, and wish the article’s author had picked up on, was that he’s got Sir Francis Bacon at #5 but doesn’t mention the Authorship connection at all.  This guy would have been my new favorite person if his description of why we think Bacon was gay had included

The only indication that Bacon could have been gay was his sonnets, which were not intended for publication. A huge fraction of these sonnets address his love for, they say, a young man. If you read them, you’ll be blown away by the intense romantic feelings in them that would really make anyone easily conclude that the poet was actually involved in a homosexual affair.

Ah well, next time.  I can only imagine what they’re saying about this one on the “Alexander The Great Geek” blog. :)