Looking for Sex in Shakespeare

Considers how far sexual meaning in Shakespeare's writing is a matter of interpretation by actors, directors and critics

Stanley Wells (Author)

9780521832847, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 April 2004

122 pages, 14 b/w illus.
22.4 x 14.4 x 1.4 cm, 0.282 kg

'It is a short, readable volume, which explores its subject with clarity and whose leisurely style reflects its origins in a series of public lectures.' Modern Literary Review

Stanley Wells is one of the best-known and most versatile of Shakespeare scholars. This book, written with characteristic verve and accessibility, considers how far sexual meaning in Shakespeare's writing is a matter of interpretation by actors, directors and critics. Tracing interpretations of Shakespearean bawdy and innuendo from eighteenth-century editors to recent scholars and critics, Wells pays special attention to recent sexually orientated studies of A Midsummer Night's Dream, once regarded as the most innocent of its author's plays. He considers the Sonnets, some of which are addressed to a man, and asks whether they imply same-sex desire in the author, or are quasi-dramatic projections of the writer's imagination. Finally, he looks at how male-to-male relationships in the plays have been interpreted as sexual in both criticism and performance. Stanley Wells's lively, provocative, and open-minded book will appeal to a broad readership of students, theatregoers and Shakespeare lovers.

Foreword Patrick Spottiswoode
Preface
Introduction
1. Lewd Interpreters
2. The originality of Shakespeare's Sonnets
3. 'I Think he Loves the World only for him': Men loving Men in Shakespeare's plays.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Shakespeare plays [DDS], Theatre studies [AN]