Sexual Desire and Romantic Love in Shakespeare

Abstract

This book, which refers to every play in the canon as well as to Shakespeare’s narrative poems and several sonnets, begins by exploring how the signifier ‘will’ denotes sexual desire within Shakespearean contexts. Unlike earlier treatments of sexuality in Shakespeare’s work, Joan Lord Hall’s study deals fully with how his plays and poems treat the issue of rape and sexual coercion—the potential violence of male desire. After exploring the dark side of ‘will’, the book analyses the playwright’s critique of idealistic Petrarchan and Neoplatonic conceptions of love that tend to bypass sexual desire. It also covers Shakespeare’s sceptical approach to ‘fancy’: infatuation driven by visual attraction. Central chapters discuss ways in which Shakespeare’s plays reflect early modern views on the role of sex and love in marriage, and they assess in greater detail than ever before how these texts show heterosexual relationships challenged by homoerotic attraction and same-sex friendship. Finally, the book explores in depth incestuous currents in in the plays—the issue of sexual desire within the family. Its eight chapters provide a comprehensive, fresh understanding of how Shakespeare presents and to some extent reconciles two areas that are often polarized in the early modern period: sexual desire and romantic love.