Relying on historical and literary evidence hidden in plain sight, Shakespeares Greatest Love tells the true, uncensored love story of William Shakespeare and Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.
Shall I compare thee to a summers day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Shakespeares Sonnet 18, written for and about Southampton.
Leaving behind a wife and three young children in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare moved to London for its thrilling theater scene, where everyone mixed freely across ages, classes, and ranks.
It was through their mutual passion for the theater that the handsome twenty-seven-year-old playwright first met and fell deeply in love with the effeminate seventeen-year-old earl who beguiled men and women alike and avowed that desire and pleasure [ should] sometimes triumph over reason.
Author David Medina demonstrates that Shakespeare wrote more of his plays and poems for and about Southampton than anyone elseworks that are sexually charged, romantic, and homoerotic. He also chronicles the evidence that Southampton provided Shakespeare the support he needed to secure his acting company share, coat of arms, family residence, royal commission, life portrait, and funerary bust.
Shakespeare and Southamptons personal and professional relationship evolved privately and publicly over a quarter century against the backdrop of a national anti-sodomy law, multiple plague outbreaks, unexpected pregnancies, rushed and possibly forced marriages, a failed rebellion, and political imprisonments.
Shakespeares Greatest Love challenges us all to recognize Southampton as the individual who had the most significant impact on Shakespeares life, literature, and legacy.
