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Book Cover
Book
Author Williams, Gordon, 1935-

Title Shakespeare, sex and the print revolution / Gordon Williams
Published London ; Atlantic Highlands, NJ : Athlone, 1996

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  820.33 Z W7232/S  AVAILABLE
Description ix, 274 pages ; 23 cm
Contents Pt. I. Shakespearean Images and the Paradox of Print. 1. The Shakespearean Reputation. 2. Performance versus Text. 3. Censorship and Evasion. 4. The First Print Era: Reader-Spectator as Voyeur -- Pt. II. Shakespeare and the Classics. 5. Roman Rapes. 6. Sexual Temptresses. 7. Trojan Whores. 8. Cupid-Adonis: 'Prettie Boyes' and 'Unlawfull Joyes'. 9. Pox and Gold: Timon's New World Heritage -- Pt. III. The Sexual Reformation. 10. The Education of Women: Textual Authority or Sexual Licence. 11. Othello, Cuckoldry and the Doctrine of Generality. 12. Class and Courtship Ritual in Much Ado. 13. Honest Whores, or the State as Brothel
Summary This book investigates how the sexual element in Shakespeare's works is complicated and compromised by the impact of print. Whether the issue is one of censorship and evasion or sexual redefinition, the fact that Shakespeare wrote in the first century of popular print is crucial. Out of the newly-accessible classical canon he creates a reconstituted idea of the sexual temptress; and out of Counter-Reformation propaganda he fashions his own complex thinking about the prostitute. Shakespeare's theatrical scripts, meeting-ground for the spoken and written word, contribute powerfully to those socio-sexual debates which had been re-energized by print
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-266) and index
Subject Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Censorship.
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation.
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism, Textual.
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Publishers
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history -- To 1625.
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.
Erotic literature -- Censorship -- England -- History -- 17th century.
Erotic literature -- Publishing -- England -- History -- 17th century.
Erotic literature, English -- Criticism, Textual.
Printing -- England -- History -- 17th century.
Sex in literature.
Sex in the theater.
Theater -- England -- History -- 17th century.
Sex.
LC no. 95031871
ISBN 048511495X
0485121212 (paperback)