Shakespeare's Greatest Love

"A skillful and succinct examination of Shakespeare’s relationship with Henry Wriothesley. Medina traces their story through revealing moments in Shakespeare’s works . . . while also giving careful consideration to Shakespeare’s rising financial and social status thanks to the Earl’s patronage. Overflowing with well-observed anecdotes and deft descriptions that paint a full portrait of the ways in which theater, homosexuality, and Shakespeare himself fit into the society of the time."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS

“David Medina’s Shakespeare’s Greatest Love is a brief but forceful book . . . such a bold defense of Shakespeare''s same-sex love feels exciting when so many specialists continue to reject or qualify this claim.”
—THE GAY AND LESBIAN REVIEW (formerly The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review)

"Shakespeare’s Greatest Love raises important questions about Southampton’s impact on Shakespeare’s life, literature, and legacy."
—PAUL M. SMITH, Georgetown Law Visiting Professor and Folger Shakespeare Library Board of Governors Member

“Medina’s work is a fine addition to the vast library of books by Shakespearean amateurs challenging the lazy assumptions of scholars.”
—BROADWAY DIRECT, “Best Theatre Books This Tony Season”

Relying on historical and literary evidence hidden in plain sight, Shakespeare’s Greatest Love tells the true, uncensored love story of William Shakespeare and Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
—­Shakespeare’s 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 else—works 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 Southampton’s 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.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Love challenges us all to recognize Southampton as the individual who had the most significant impact on Shakespeare’s life, literature, and legacy.

• | Author: David Medina
• | Publisher: Disruption Books
• | Publication Date: Apr 22, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781633311060
• | ISBN-10: 1633311066