Shakespeare knew as much about the human condition as any man who
ever lived, and of course is fascinating on the subject of love.
Professor Charney looks at his view of love, which was essentially
the view of his time, from almost every aspect of the subject -
falling in love, married love, homoerotic love (with special
reference to all the cross-dressing in the comedies) - and the
different treatment of the subject in the plays. He is particularly
jolly in his chapter on Shakespeare's use of bawdy. His book is
original, and a real contribution to Shakespearean criticism,
though unmistakably for the real enthusiast. (Kirkus UK)
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.
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