Shakespeare, Sex and Love

In his book Shakespeare, Sex and Love noted Shakespearean expert and author Stanley Wells takes on a fairly big task.

He examines how Shakespeare dealt with the subjects of sex and romantic love in his plays and his other written works.

In doing this, Wells undertakes a detailed analysis of the works of Shakespeare, which, of course, one would expect.

But Wells does more than this. He examines the sexual morays of the times in which William Shakespeare lived. How the contemporary folk of the day viewed sex and sexual matters.

He explores the use of sexual imagery in Elizabethan poetry, how some apparently innocent phrases would have possibly had another, more titillating meaning that would have been all too clear to the groundlings who attended the performances of the plays.  

Wells also points out that some modern critics simply do not 'get' Shakespeare, failing to understand some of the points he was making, or at least, illustrating.

The text is assisted by some photographs of the plays of Shakespeare, which are most helpful.

A very interesting book from dramatical and historical viewpoints.

It is published by the Oxford University Press in paperback at £10.99 or $17.95.  However, it might well be available at a discount through the That's Books bookshop, which is powered by Amazon.