"
After the age of 31 Barnfield wrote no more, but, being in easy
circumstances, retired to his beautiful manor house and country estate in
Shropshire, lived there for twenty years and died leaving a wife and
son.[85] It seems probable that he was of bisexual temperament, and that,
as not infrequently happens in such cases, the homosexual element
developed early under the influence of a classical education and
university associations, while the normal heterosexual element developed
later and, as may happen in bisexual persons, was associated with the more
commonplace and prosaic side of life. Barnfield was only a genuine poet on
the homosexual side of his nature.
Greater men of that age than Barnfield may be suspected of homosexual
tendencies. Marlowe, whose most powerful drama, _Edward II_, is devoted to
a picture of the relations between that king and his minions, is himself
suspected of homosexuality. An ignorant informer brought certain charges
of freethought and criminality against him, and further accused him of
asserting that they are fools who love not boys. These charges have
doubtless been colored by the vulgar channel through which they passed,
but it seems absolutely impossible to regard them as the inventions of a
mere gallows-bird such as this informer was.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90