Shakespeare, Sex, and Love by Stanley Wells (PDF)

Description

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 ofdepictions of sexuality 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.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐When I began studying Shakespeare, many of the sex jokes were glossed as “bawdy quibble,” with no further explanation. These days it is possible to talk about sex in any context. Stanley Wells explains the jokes in straightforward English, neither titillating nor salacious.But although his writing is candid and easy-going, some of the meanings of the poetry are startling. He explains, for instance, that one of the meanings of Sonnet 135 is that if the woman to whom it is addressed agrees to the poet’s demands “she will increase her sexual appetite (and, however improbably, `enlarge her vagina’ by enclosing his penis in it along with all the others).” These are not the imaginings of a lunatic professor, as you might imagine without having read the book, but a down-to-earth interpretation by someone who knows Elizabethan English as well as anyone in the world.The book not only explains the meanings of the bawdy lines. It discusses sex and love of all kinds in Shakespeare, as the table of contents suggests: Sexuality in Shakespeare’s Time, Shakespeare and Sex (the playwright’s personal life), The Fun of Sex, Sexual Desire, Sex and Love, Sexual Jealously, Sex and Experience, Whores and Saints and “Just Good Friends.”Every year I read one or two books about Shakespeare. This is one of the best ever. But the editing, at least for the Kindle and iPod versions, is atrocious. Many words are run together, others are hyphenated in impossible ways. Shakespeare’s texts were apparently clipped out as images rather than texts, and pasted together so that, for instance, you get part of a sonnet in one font, a few blank lines, and the rest of the sonnet in another font. The iPod version is left- and right-justified without proportional spacing, making it impossible to read.But don’t let the bad editing deter you. Perhaps the paper edition is edited correctly. The Kindle edition is readable, despite the bad typesetting. This book is a masterpiece of scholarship.

⭐I didn’t know about Shakespeare before I picked this up at a truck stop on the I-70 right outside of Omahabut after finishing I immediately went and read A few plays by ‘William Shakespeare’ and they areawesome. You can probably do without this book, read the plays. But if you haven’t read the playsthe book is something else.

⭐Professor Wells always produces an excellent product. I have been teaching Shakespeare since 1968 and always have wished that his body of work had been published then.I always discover insights into the Shakespeare Cannon with Stanley pointing the way. The chapter on Romeo and Juliet was particularly enlightening. I’ll be using some of his wisdom in the course-Shakespeare’s Strong Women-Weaker Men, that I’ll be teaching (Worcester Institute for Senior Education) this fall. Shakespeare and Stanley know the heart of women.

⭐Excellent!

⭐“Shakespeare, Sex, and Love” is a good addition to the library of books on Shakespeare and his works. Written in an academic, yet easy to read, style the book is laid out in an almost textbook fashion. Stanley Wells arranges the text in two parts, the first dealing with Shakespeare’s “Life and Times” and the second focusing on “Plays and Poems”. The division in the text works nicely. Kudos also goes to Mr. Wells for constantly reminding the reader that his interpretations are at best conjecture. We can never know for sure what Shakespeare was thinking or intending. Too many scholars have forgotten that!Mr. Wells breaks Part II of the text into six subcategories and fits most of the plays and poems into one of them. His explanations are intriguing and thought provoking. He is also very zealous about pointing out that much of what people put on/into Shakespeare is from their perspective. All we have is the text, not Shakespeare’s mind.Personal highlights for me included his examination of the contrasting views of love and sex between the Bard’s “Love’s Labor’s Lost” and “As You Like It”. They were fascinating and helped illuminate both plays for me. I also found chapter 4 (The Fun of Sex) and chapter 10 (Just Good Friends?) and Wells’ analysis of the plays he puts into those categories to be absorbing reading.“Shakespeare, Sex, and Love” is not an introductory text on Shakespeare, but rather a readable academic examination for those familiar with Shakespeare’s body of work. I think the book would be even more interesting to those who see a lot of Shakespeare in performance, as it deal with various interpretations of scenes and characters, prone to be interesting to those who see the plays performed regularly.All in all, an engaging text. I enjoyed it.

⭐This fine book is aimed at those adept with Shakespeare’s works, but is nonetheless enjoyable by those with a more passing love of his oeuvre. Stanley Wells tries to steer a course between those who seek to airbrush the sexuality from Will’s works, and those who see a sexual pun or reference in every other word. While Wills scolds those on both extremes, ultimately he seems more at home with those who can tease out of a layer of naughtiness from just about any verse. Wells gets into some deep territory, exploring whether Shakespeare was a homosexual or a bisexual. The Dark Lady in the sonnets comes in for a great deal of very abstruse commentary. By examining 16th century court cases, Wells shows the London in the 1500s to be a pretty sexy place. There are prostitutes, sodomy and scandal aplenty. But how much of this splashes onto Will’s own pantaloons is hard to gauge.I don’t have the expertise to determine whether Wells’s work is definitive, but it did open my eyes to the complexity of gauging a man’s personality via his fictional writing.

⭐A wonderful, insightful read. It does not seek to alter or convince, merely to inform, giving strong textual evidence, as well as historical fact, how Shakespeare sought to entertain and enlighten through the relationship between human sexuality and love. If you’re a fan of the works, even just a few, there’s something to be learned for any curious mind on these pages.

⭐Embarrassing.

⭐Stanley Wells never disappoints, such is his expertise on Shakespeare and on the work of his fellow Shakespeare scholars. I have some reservations about this one, in that it finds sexual puns a little too frequently to be altogether convincing; but there is a great deal to think about here, and dipping into deep Wells always brings up some marvellous fresh ideas. Keep your Complete Works at hand as you read, so that you can immediately see the (numerous) quotations in context. Well(s) worth the money.

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