Download or read book Sexual Desire and Romantic Love in Shakespeare written by Joan Lord Hall and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with how the signifier 'will' operates in Shakespearean contexts, this book, unlike other studies, deals fully with how Shakespeare's plays treat the issue of rape and sexual coercion, and how far the plays reflect early modern views on the role of sex and love in marriage. It assesses in more detail than ever before the ways in which heterosexual love relationships in Shakespeare's plays are challenged by homoerotic attraction and same-sex friendships. Joan Lord Hall also explores in depth incestuous currents in the plays: the issue of sexual desire within the family. Referring to every play in the canon as well as to Shakespeare's narrative poems and several sonnets, she explores the dark side of 'will' (rape and sexual coercion) before analysing the playwright's critique of Petrarchan and Neo-Platonic conceptions of love that bypass desire. It also covers his sceptical approach to 'fancy' driven chiefly by visual attraction, presenting a comprehensive, fresh understanding of sexual desire and romantic love in Shakespeare.
Download or read book Shakespeare Sex and Love written by Stanley Wells and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-04-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 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 Juliet as 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-gender relationships.
Download or read book Queer Shakespeare written by Goran Stanivukovic and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Shakespeare on Love and Lust written by Maurice Charney and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-22 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complex and sometimes contradictory expressions of love in Shakespeare's works—ranging from the serious to the absurd and back again—arise primarily from his dramatic and theatrical flair rather than from a unified philosophy of love. Untangling his witty, bawdy (and ambiguous) treatment of love, sex, and desire requires a sharp eye and a steady hand. In Shakespeare on Love and Lust, noted scholar Maurice Charney delves deeply into Shakespeare's rhetorical and thematic development of this largest of subjects to reveal what makes his plays and poems resonate with contemporary audiences. The paradigmatic star-crossed lovers of Romeo and Juliet, the comic confusions of couples wandering through the wood in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello's tragic jealousy, the homoerotic ways Shakespeare played with cross-dressing on the Elizabethan stage—Charney explores the world in which Shakespeare lived, and how it is reflected and transformed in the one he created. While focusing primarily on desire between young lovers, Charney also explores themes of love in marriage (Brutus and Portia) and in same-sex pairings (Antonio and Sebastian). Against the conventions of Renaissance literature, Shakespeare qualified the Platonic view that true love transcends the physical. Instead, as Charney demonstrates, love in Shakespeare's work is almost always sexual as well as spiritual, and the full range of desire's dramatic possibilities is displayed. Shakespeare on Love and Lust begins by considering the ways in which Shakespeare drew upon and satirized the conventions of Petrarchan Renaissance love poetry in plays like Romeo and Juliet, then explores how courtship is woven into the basic plot formula of the comedies. Next, Charney examines love in the tragedies and the enemies of love (Iago, for example). Later chapters cover the gender complications in such plays as Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew as well as the homoerotic themes woven into many of the poems and plays. Charney concludes with a lively discussion of paradoxes and ambivalences about love expressed by Shakespeare's word play and sexual innuendoes.
Download or read book Revisiting Shakespeare s Italian Resources written by Silvia Bigliazzi and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revisiting Shakespeare’s Italian Resources is about the complex dynamics of transmission and transformation of the Italian sources of twelve Shakespearean plays, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to Cymbeline. It focuses on the works of Sir Giovanni Fiorentino, Da Porto, Bandello, Ariosto, Dolce, Pasqualigo, and Groto, as well as on commedia dell’arte practices. This book discusses hitherto unexamined materials and revises received interpretations, disclosing the relevance of memorial processes within the broad field of intertextuality vis-à-vis conscious reuses and intentional practices.
Download or read book Shakespeare on Love Lust written by Maurice Charney and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading Shakespearean authority untangles the legendary writer's witty, bawdy, and ambiguous treatment of sex, love, and desire.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Comedies of Love written by Richard Paul Knowles and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's Comedies of Love is a tribute to Alexander Leggatt, a critic who has shaped the way the world understands Shakespeare and his comedies.
Download or read book Love in William Shakespeare s As You Like It written by Julie Dillenkofer and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,7, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: Literature & Film - Adapting Shakespeare for the Screen, language: English, abstract: William Shakespeare's "As You Like It" portrays love and marriage in a comical, amusing manner. The play represents passionate love on the one hand, as well as disguised, blind and even manipulated love on the other hand. Love as a state of being is omnipresent throughout As You Like It. As the play's major theme, love is illustrated essentially by eight characters who all marry at the end of the play. However, As You Like It cannot be interpreted as a typical love story. In fact, only one twosome, namely Rosalind and Orlando, illustrates a relationship of true love which ends in a happy, mutually agreeable marriage. By falling in love at first sight, they symbolize the typical Shakespearean romantic lovers whose love overcomes any obstacles. The other couples in the play, however, seem to pursue rather different goals. Audrey and Touchstone simply wish to act on their sexual desire, which they cleverly hide behind marriage in order to prevent any "Vorwurf der Unzucht" - a serious matter in Elizabethan times. Phoebe and Silvius are both in love, though not reciprocally. Silvius does love Phoebe; she, however, falls in love with Ganymede and is merely tricked into committing herself to Silvius. Celia and Oliver are simply following the lead of Rosalind and Orlando, but seem to strive for companionship rather than passion or true love. Shakespeare illustrates four different kinds of love in As You Like It in a humorous way. He demonstrates that love and marriage do not necessarily have to go hand in hand and adds comical aspects of love by turning some characters into fools. In this way, Shakespeare builds on the Elizabethan assumptions about love as a sickness, but still validates it as a valuable aspect of a happy marriage.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Marlowe written by Robert A. Logan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving beyond traditional studies of sources and influence, Shakespeare's Marlowe analyzes the uncommonly powerful aesthetic bond between Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Not only does this study take into account recent ideas about intertextuality, but it also shows how the process of tracking Marlowe's influence itself prompts questions and reflections that illuminate the dramatists' connections. Further, after questioning the commonly held view of Marlowe and Shakespeare as rivals, the individual chapters suggest new possible interrelationships in the formation of Shakespeare's works. Such examination of Shakespeare's Marlovian inheritance enhances our understanding of the dramaturgical strategies of each writer and illuminates the importance of such strategies as shaping forces on their works. Robert Logan here makes plain how Shakespeare incorporated into his own work the dramaturgical and literary devices that resulted in Marlowe's artistic and commercial success. Logan shows how Shakespeare's examination of the mechanics of his fellow dramatist's artistry led him to absorb and develop three especially powerful influences: Marlowe's remarkable verbal dexterity, his imaginative flexibility in reconfiguring standard notions of dramatic genres, and his astute use of ambivalence and ambiguity. This study therefore argues that Marlowe and Shakespeare regarded one another not chiefly as writers with great themes, but as practicing dramatists and poets-which is where, Logan contends, the influence begins and ends.
Download or read book Sexuality in the Comedies of William Shakespeare written by Stephen P. Thompson and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2014-04-25 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Seduction by Shakespeare written by TCB Cafe Publishing and published by TCB Cafe Publishing. This book was released on 2005-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why bother with Ann Landers, Dear Abby, and other modern advice mavens when Shakespeare is here to help? This book collects some of the Bard's pithiest, most insightful sayings on romance and its variations. She asks, “How do I look?" Shakespeare responds "Beauty itself doth of itself persuade/ The eyes of men without an orator.” Don't know how to express an appreciation for bondage? How about "All strange and terrible events are welcome/But comforts we despise." Included are quick reference icons for finding the perfect words to complete a perfect moment.
Download or read book The Expense of Spirit written by Mary Beth Rose and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A public and highly popular literary form, English Renaissance drama affords a uniquely valuable index of the process of cultural transformation. The Expense of Spirit integrates feminist and historicist critical approaches to explore the dynamics of cultural conflict and change during a crucial period in the formation of modern sexual values. Comparing Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic representations of love and sexuality with those in contemporary moral tracts and religious writings on women, love, and marriage, Mary Beth Rose argues that such literature not only interpreted sexual sensibilities but also contributed to creating and transforming them.
Download or read book A Companion to Shakespeare s Sonnets written by Michael Schoenfeldt and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion represents the myriad ways of thinking about the remarkable achievement of Shakespeare’s sonnets. An authoritative reference guide and extended introduction to Shakespeare’s sonnets. Contains more than 20 newly-commissioned essays by both established and younger scholars. Considers the form, sequence, content, literary context, editing and printing of the sonnets. Shows how the sonnets provide a mirror in which cultures can read their own critical biases. Informed by the latest theoretical, cultural and archival work.
Download or read book Shakespeare and the Nature of Love written by Marcus Nordlund and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-27 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best conception of love, Marcus Nordlund contends, and hence the best framework for its literary analysis, must be a fusion of evolutionary, cultural, and historical explanation. It is within just such a bio-cultural nexus that Nordlund explores Shakespeare’s treatment of different forms of love. His approach leads to a valuable new perspective on Shakespearean love and, more broadly, on the interaction between our common humanity and our historical contingency as they are reflected, recast, transformed, or even suppressed in literary works. After addressing critical issues about love, biology, and culture raised by his method, Nordlund considers four specific forms of love in seven of Shakespeare’s plays. Examining the vicissitudes of parental love in Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus, he argues that Shakespeare makes a sustained inquiry into the impact of culture and society upon the natural human affections. King Lear offers insight into the conflicted relationship between love and duty. In two problem plays about romantic love, Troilus and Cressida and All’s Well that Ends Well, the tension between individual idiosyncrasies and social consensus becomes especially salient. And finally, in Othello and The Winter’s Tale, Nordlund asks what Shakespeare can tell us about the dark avatar of jealousy.
Download or read book Sex with Shakespeare written by Jillian Keenan and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative, moving, kinky, and often absurdly funny memoir about Shakespeare, love, obsession, and spanking When it came to understanding love, a teenage Jillian Keenan had nothing to guide her—until a production of The Tempest sent Shakespeare’s language flowing through her blood for the first time. In Sex with Shakespeare, she tells the story of how the Bard’s plays helped her embrace her unusual sexual identity and find a love story of her own. Four hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, Keenan’s smart and passionate memoir brings new life to his work. With fourteen of his plays as a springboard, she explores the many facets of love and sexuality—from desire and communication to fetish and fantasy. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Keenan unmasks Helena as a sexual masochist—like Jillian herself. In Macbeth, she examines criminalized sexual identities and the dark side of “privacy.” The Taming of the Shrew goes inside the secret world of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism, while King Lear exposes the ill-fated king as a possible sexual predator. Moving through the canon, Keenan makes it abundantly clear that literature is a conversation. In Sex with Shakespeare, words are love. As Keenan wanders the world in search of connection, from desert dictatorships to urban islands to disputed territories, Shakespeare goes with her —and provokes complex, surprising, and wildly important conversations about sexuality, consent, and the secrets that simmer beneath our surfaces.
Download or read book Shakespeare and Sexuality written by Catherine M. S. Alexander and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-20 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book draws together ten important essays which explore the significance of sexuality in Shakespeare's work.
Download or read book Pangs of Love and Longing written by Anders Cullhed and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complex relationship between psychic structures, social norms, and aesthetic representations is a challenge for every analysis of the historical manifestations of human desire. Pangs of Love and Longing: Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature sets out to provide a deeper understanding of this relation by an assessment of linguistic and artistic configurations of desire in European literature from Antiquity to the Early Modern period. The aim is to explore historic continuities and ruptures in attitudes towards sexuality, pleasures and bodies, as these are represented in a variety of cultural forms, in order to demonstrate the plurality of premodern desire – and, ultimately, to offer fresh perspectives on our present reality. The seventeen scholars participating in the anthology bring together theories and assessments from different areas of the Humanities – German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, and Comparative Literature, History of Ideas and of Art, Theology, Philosophy and Gender Studies. They are all engaged in cross-disciplinary activities at universities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and they all participate in the Scandinavian network “Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature” initiated in 2010.
