Shakespeare on Love and Lust

Maurice Charney

Published by Columbia University Press 2002

Shakespeare on Love and Lust

Maurice Charney

https://doi.org/10.7312/char10428

Overview
Contents

About this book

Shakespeare's witty, bawdy—and ambiguous—treatment of love, sex, and desire, brilliantly untangled by a leading Shakespeare scholar.

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.

Author / Editor information

Maurice Charney is Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University and the past president of the Shakespeare Association of America. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including How to Read Shakespeare, Style in Hamlet, Shakespeare's Roman Plays, Sexual Fiction, and All of Shakespeare (Columbia) and is a recipient of the Medal of the City of Tours.

Reviews

A fascinating overview of every aspect of love expressed in Shakespeare's works. Young love, married love, same-sex bonds, humorous or ribald, lusty or wistful... a delightful treatment of a subject that was played out on Shakespeare's stage in all its infinite variety.

Places the era's genre conventions and language on the bare stage, spelling out the bawdy puns and the sexual euphemisms.... Alive with informed readings and provoking asides.

Provides beginners with an informative and readable introduction to Shakespeare's handling of the themes of love and lust, and advanced scholars with thoughtful new material.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter One. Falling in Love: Conventions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Chapter Two. Love Doctrine in the Comedies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Chapter Three. Love Doctrine in the Problem Plays and Hamlet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Chapter Four. Love Doctrine in the Tragedies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Chapter Five. Enemies of Love Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Chapter Six. Gender Definitions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Chapter Seven. Homoerotic Discourses Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Chapter Eight. Love and Lust: Sexual Wit Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
AFTERWORD Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 248

eBook

Published: July 22, 2002
ISBN: 9780231500067