Shakespeare, sex and the print revolution

the long version

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.