This fascinating edition examines the comedies of playwright William Shakespeare through the lens of sexuality. Essays explore topics such as the ambiguity of Shakespeare's sonnets, Renaissance attitudes toward sexuality, themes of misogyny in Taming of the Shrew, and sexual anxiety in Much Ado About Nothing. Modern perspectives on sexuality and courtship are also presented, covering subjects such as social media and dating, modern mythology about the differences between genders, and a decline in American romantic comedies.

This fascinating edition examines the comedies of playwright William Shakespeare through the lens of sexuality. Essays explore topics such as the ambiguity of Shakespeare's sonnets, Renaissance attitudes toward sexuality, themes of misogyny in Taming of the Shrew, and sexual anxiety in Much Ado About Nothing. Modern perspectives on sexuality and courtship are also presented, covering subjects such as social media and dating, modern mythology about the differences between genders, and a decline in American romantic comedies.

This book draws together ten important essays which explore the significance of sexuality in Shakespeare's work.

How does Shakespeare's treatment of human sexuality relate to the sexual conventions and language of his times? Pre-eminent Shakespearean critic Stanley Wells draws on historical and anecdotal sources to present an illuminating account of sexual behaviour in Shakespeare's time, particularly in Stratford-upon-Avon and London. He demonstrates what we know or can deduce of the sex lives of Shakespeare and members of his family. He also provides a fascinating account of depictions ofsexuality in the poetry of the period and suggests that at the time Shakespeare was writing most of his non-dramatic verse a group of poets catered especially for readers with homoerotic tastes.The second part of Shakespeare, Sex, - and Love focuses on the variety of ways in which Shakespeare treats sexuality in his plays and at how he relates sexuality to love. Wells shows that Shakespeare's attitude to sex developed over the course of his writing career, and devotes whole chapters to 'The Fun of Sex' - to how he raises laughter out of the matter of sex in both the language and the plotting of some of his comedies; portrayals of sexual desire; to Romeo and Julietas the play in which Shakespeare focuses most centrally on issues relating to sex, love, and the relationship between them; to sexual jealousy, traced through four major plays; 'Sexual Experience'; and 'Whores and Saints'. A final chapter, 'Just Good Friends' examines Shakespeare's rendering of same-genderrelationships.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 74, , course: B A (Hons) with English, language: English, abstract: This Research paper aims at highlighting various homo sexual instances in four of Shakespeare’s Comedies - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night. When I discuss "levels" of relationships, I refer to one of three levels: the first is the playhouse level, which denotes the Early Modern theatrical world and assumes the use of boy actors. The second level is the true-character level, which signifies the "true plot" that lies under the exterior plot where characters do not yet know that Cesario is actually Viola or that Ganymede is actually Rosalind. The third and final level is the plot level, or what is currently occurring in the story line at that moment without invoking the playhouse level or citing the use of boy actors. I also refer to other works of Shakespeare like his sonnets and his plays (Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV and V, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Timon of Athens and Tragedy of Coriolanus) and try to determine the disruption of hetero-normative Renaissance England by homo-erotic characters developed by Shakespeare. In this paper, I also shed light on the Playwright’s life and the socio-cultural environment of Elizabethan England. The difference between the societies of then and now is highlighted and are accordingly used to interpret the plays.

Discusses the sonnets, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labours Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and others.

James Bromley argues that Renaissance texts circulate knowledge about a variety of non-standard sexual practices and intimate life narratives, including non-monogamy, anal eroticism, masochism and cross-racial female homoeroticism. Rethinking current assumptions about intimacy in Renaissance drama, poetry and prose, the book blends historicized and queer approaches to embodiment, narrative and temporality. An important contribution to Renaissance literary studies, queer theory and the history of sexuality, the book demonstrates the relevance of Renaissance literature to today. Through close readings of William Shakespeare's 'problem comedies', Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, plays by Beaumont and Fletcher, Thomas Middleton's The Nice Valour and Lady Mary Wroth's sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus and her prose romance The Urania, Bromley re-evaluates notions of the centrality of deep, abiding affection in Renaissance culture and challenges our own investment in a narrowly defined intimate sphere.

Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality draws together 13 essays, which offer a major reassessment of the criticism of desire, body and sexuality in Shakespeare's drama and poetry. Bringing together some of the most prominent critics working at the intersection of Shakespeare criticism and queer theory, this collection demonstrates the vibrancy of queer Shakespeare studies. Taken together, these essays explore embodiment, desire, sexuality and gender as key objects of analyses, producing concepts and ideas that draw critical energy from focused studies of time, language and nature. The Afterword extends these inquiries by linking the Anthropocene and queer ecology with Shakespeare criticism. Works from Shakespeare's entire canon feature in essays which explore topics like glass, love, antitheatrical homophobia, size, narrative, sound, female same-sex desire and Petrarchism, weather, usury and sodomy, male femininity and male-to-female crossdressing, contagion, and antisocial procreation.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Wuppertal, language: English, abstract: Women mistaken for men, men mistaken for women, disguised as men - this play with identity and gender does not seem to be a new topic for the theatre audience of the 21. century. But in Elizabethan England, where identity and the question of class were very important for society, these confusing relationships shown on stage must have been puzzling. Although confusions over identity are nothing new in comedy since classical times, it is Shakespeare who mainly focused on the issue of gender in his comedies. In 'Twelfth Night' he plays with the cultural constructions of his time, for example the question of gender and erotic attraction, even between partners of the same sex.