Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Most Outrageous Sexual Puns

Celebrating the Bard in all his bawdy glory, an eminent scholar puts the spotlight on the down-and-dirty sexual puns lurking in Shakespeare?s work.

Everyone knows of his matchless understanding of the human condition, but we have been deprived for centuries of the full extent of one of Shakespeare?s most brilliant dramatic devices. Restoring the saucy, often shocking meanings that lie beneath his words, Filthy Shakespeare gives modern readers a tour of the brothels, buggery, trannies, pimps, pricks, and other tawdry references populating his best-known works. The tension between sexual wordplay and politics provides a captivating historical backdrop, while the fascinating facts about life in Will?s England make us see his masterworks in their gritty authenticity.

Revealing and riotously funny, Filthy Shakespeare is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to rediscover the master of the sexual pun at his most inventive.

Dr Pauline Kiernan holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she taught for many years, and is the author of the acclaimed Shakespeare’s Theory of Drama (CUP). She was appointed Leverhulme Research Fellow to work on productions at the new Globe on Bankside in its first years. Her scholarship on Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama has captivated worldwide audiences.