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.[86] Moreover, Marlowe's poetic work, while it shows him by no means insensitive to the beauty of women, also reveals a special and peculiar sensitiveness to masculine beauty.

Marlowe clearly had a reckless delight in all things unlawful, and it seems probable that he possessed the bisexual temperament.