Shakespeare and the New Disease: The Dramatic Function of Syphilis in Troilus and Cressida

This book makes several important contributions to our knowledge of Shakespeare and the Renaissance. First, Bentley's close and thorough analysis of the references to syphilis in Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and Timon of Athens illustrates how Shakespeare not only transforms a medical topic into imaginative literature, but more specifically it demonstrates how Shakespeare employs this «image cluster» to define and reveal major themes in the plays - sexual commercialism, slander, and usury, respectively. Second, Bentley's investigation of the imagery and themes in these plays provides evidence about their generic identity: rather than view these plays as traditional comedies or even problem plays, they should be looked at as comic or tragic satires.

«George Bentley shows that, like AIDS today, syphilis in the Renaissance was (or seemed to be) the new disease that no one could ignore: named after a famous epic explaining the origin of the disease, it captured many a Renaissance writer's imagination, including Shakespeare's. Bentley goes beyond most writers on medical subjects in Shakespeare, who tend to content themselves with showing how much Shakespeare knew of a particular medical problem and thus slip into the crack between medical and literary history. Bentley's study becomes truly and admirably interdisciplinary as he shows that references to syphilis are deeply woven into the fabric of three plays and that the topic is intertwined with some major themes of these plays.» (Winfried Schleiner, University of California, Davis)
«'Shakespeare and the New Disease' is a significant addition to the scholarly American University Series, and its author, Greg W. Bentley, is to be congratulated on finding a new way of looking at Shakespeare's imagery which takes the study of it beyond that of Caroline Spurgeon and even the great Wolfgang Clemen.» (Leonard R.N. Ashley, Brooklyn)