Filthy Shakespeare
Author(s): Pauline Kiernan
Despite the richness of Shakespeare's sexual language (his work includes no fewer than 150 puns for female genitals, and 180 for male genitalia), scant attention has been paid to it until now. "Filthy Shakespeare" offers more than 70 examples of the Bard at his bawdiest, arranged under 23 sexual categories. Each filthy passage is 'translated' into modern English and the hidden sexual meanings of the words explained in a glossary. In a lively and rumbustious introduction, author Pauline Kiernan shows how Shakespeare's predilection for rude punning had its roots in the social and political reality of Elizabethan England, where the brutal facts of life were often described by figures of speech to distance or disguise them, and where the network of government spies meant that covert communication was, for some, a matter of life and death. "Filthy Shakespeare" is not just the quirkiest, dirtiest and funniest gift book of the year, it also offers fascinating and surprising insights into the richness and complexity of Shakespeare's world and Shakespeare's language.
Product Information
Glorious ... a beautifully presented guide to Elizabethan filth - The Observer Filthy Shakespeare ... claims that the collected works contain 150 puns for female genitalia, and 180 for male. Kiernan lists them all - The Guardian Kiernan is a pukka scholar ... She finds sex in more or less everything: her method might be called sexegesis. Not everybody will be convinced by all the salacities she discerns in Shakespeare's language, but I hope she won't misinterpret me if I say she makes a good fist of it - The Spectator Glorious ... a beautifully presented guide to Elizabethan filth - Stephen Bayley, Observer Book of the Year
Pauline Kiernan is a distinguished Shakespeare academic, screenwriter and award-winning playwright. She has held research fellowships at the Universities of Oxford and Reading and is the author of the much-praised Shakespeare's Theory of Drama (CUP 1996).
Acknowledgements A Note Before You Begin Introduction: Sex in Shakespeare's Time A Note on Sources Pertaining to Fucking Pertaining to Cunt Pertaining to Prick Pertaining to Erection Pertaining to Ejaculation Pertaining to Wanking Pertaining to Cunnilingus Pertaining to Fellatio Pertaining to Buggery Pertaining to Transvestite Pertaining to Lesbian Pertaining to Homosexual Pertaining to Brothels Pertaining to Male Whore Pertaining to Female Whore Pertaining to The Clap Pertaining to Dildos Pertaining to Boobs Pertaining to Balls Pertaining to Pubes Pertaining to Impotence Pertaining to Virginity Pertaining to Pimps Appendix Index
General Fields
- :
- : 168992
- : 168992
- : 01 June 2007
- : 197mm X 129mm
- : United Kingdom
- : books
Special Fields
- : Pauline Kiernan
- : Paperback
- : New edition
- : 822.33
- : 304
