The Male Homosocial Desire In Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare is an everlasting legend in the literary arena of England and even the whole world. Apart from his well-known plays, the collection of his sonnets has also received high appreciation by literary theorists and common readers one generation after another. The themes of the sonnets have been widely studied, such as love, the transience of time, and impermanence of life, and so on. Besides, the complicated relationship between the main characters, especially the male characters, also has drawn a great deal of attention these years. This thesis mainly focuses on this perspective. Under the framework of male homosocial desire proposed by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, an American queer theorist, this thesis aims to explore the homosocial desire embodied in the male characters in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.Sedgwick claims that gender, to a considerable extent, is constructed by the society instead of physical features. More importantly, she focuses on the male homosocial desire conveyed in English literary works. She figures out that such desire is achieved through traffic in women whose presence is of no destruction to male bonds; on the contrary, it serves as a catalyst for the bonds to be more secure. In the thesis, the Sonnets is mainly divided into two parts:Procreation sonnets and Triangular love sonnets. In the former group, the poet-speaker repeatedly urges Fair Youth to get married with a woman so that they can have sons to inherit and eternalize his beauty. The poet believes only in this way can Fair Youth’s beauty and their affinity be perpetuated. What he emphasizes is the endlessness of the close relationship with Fair Youth and his beauty, however, the role of a woman in the heterosexual marriage is barely mentioned throughout the Procreation sonnets. In the latter group, the poet-speaker, Fair Youth, and Dark Lady form an erotic triangle in which Dark lady is only the conduit of male homosocial desire.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the whole thesis comprises three chapters:The introduction draws a sketch of Shakespeare and his literary achievements, gives a research review on Shakespeare’s Sonnets of domestic and overseas researchers therefore embodies the importance and aim of the thesis.Chapter One begins with a brief introduction to the representative notions and theorists of the Queer Theory. It claims that gender is a product of society, and in the framework of society, homosocial desire is the central point of attention.Chapter Two explains how the male homosocial desire is embodied in the Procreation sonnets. The poet-speaker worries that, as time elapses, Fair Youth may no longer be beautiful and the love for him will also cease. Consequently, in the first17sonnets, he continuously urges Fair Youth to get children through a heterosexual marriage. It is Fair Youth and his sons that are paid great attention to, on the contrary, a woman, the tool of procreation, is barely mentioned. In this way, the male homosocial desire is evidently revealed.Chapter Three comes to the second part of the Sonnets. It mainly analyses how the male homosocial desire is expressed in the erotic triangle with the poet-speaker, Fair Youth, and Dark Lady involved. The triangle is symmetrical in terms of form and syntax, but asymmetrical when it comes to the perspective of semantics. Although the two men are rivals for Dark Lady, they ultimately value their social bonds between themselves. Dark Lady is more a target of criticism than an object of admiration. The relationship between the males does not suffer from alienation because of the presence of Dark Lady who merely serves as glue between their social bonding.The final part summarizes the main ideas of the thesis and draws the conclusion that the embodiment and development of the male homosocial desire revealed in Shakespeare’s Sonnets is in concord with the theory of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; it is feasible to interprete literary works by using Queer Theory, in light of which, the special relationship between the poet speaker and Fair Youth is discovered. Their relationship is neither homosexual nor friendship, but a male homosocial desire.