Shakespeare on Sex

Marc Berley was professor of English at Rutgers and Barnard/Columbia. His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in the Iowa Review, the Threepenny Review, Lit Hub, and newspapers nationwide. He has appeared on BBC and PBS and been covered by Reuters, USA Today, the Washington Post, and ABC’s The View. He holds a BA, MA, and PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia. The author of After the Heavenly Tune and editor of Reading the Renaissance, he is founding editor of the award-winning literary magazine LitMag. He lives in New York. Visit him at marcberley.com.

“Of special interest.”—Sir Ian McKellen"If Norman Mailer—who had six wives, stabbed the second one, and went on to have four more—were with us still, he would relish and cherish Marc Berley’s speedy, elating, jubilating, dramatic excavations of Shakespeare’s daring ideas of chastity and fulfillment. Here is the living Bard far, far from the classroom and set on an intimate, vivid, and fearless stage."—Cynthia Ozick, award-winning essayist and author of Trust, The Messiah of Stockholm, The Shawl, The Puttermesser Papers, and others“A hilariously spicy journey through Shakespeare’s life and work. Berley’s thorough analysis is full of wit, plenty of spice, and a deep understanding of history and literature. Read with caution! You will never see Shakespeare the same again. This is the Shakespeare book the Bard himself would approve of.”—Joe Gillard, author of The Little Book of Lost Words“With clear and well-reasoned arguments, Marc Berley makes the case for Shakespeare not only as an advocate for liberation from the sexual restrictions of Elizabethan England, but as a man centuries ahead of his time on a wide array of issues relating to sex and sexuality. A fascinating read that shows a feminist Bard hiding in plain sight.”—Charlie Lovett, New York Times bestselling author“In Shakespeare on Sex, Marc Berley challenges the centuries-old scholarly reflex of sanitizing the Bard, arguing that the central energy of Shakespeare's work is, quite simply, the smut. The book moves from play to play, restoring to each its erotic charge, often riotously so. Berley’s analyses are inventive and grounded...particularly about Will’s marriage to Anne Hathaway.... [Y]ou’ll find here a genuinely, eh, fresh take on Shakespeare’s dramatic oeuvre.”—Jane Harrington, bestselling author of Women of the Fairytale Resistance“The British catchphrase 'No sex please, we’re British' is a modern illusion. Berley's work reminds us that 400 years ago, Elizabethan audiences thought far more about sex than we like to admit, and that Shakespeare built that desire into language written for a Globe Theatre alive with smut, laughter, and sharp thinking!"—James Cook, author of Authors in Type"[An] exploration of how the works of William Shakespeare challenged sexual mores of Elizabethan England....The playwright was 'a pioneering advocate for sexual freedoms, especially for women.'”—Publishers Weekly“Berley’s writing is breezy and strongly put. He must have been a blast at the podium in his Rutgers days.”—Dave Luhrssen, Shepherd Express