Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare
Author: TOSH WILL
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 10/04/2025
Imprint: SCEPTRE
Price: $24.99
Publishing status: NOT YET PUBLISHED
‘Fluent and witty . . . confident . . . highly readable’
Kathryn Hughes, GUARDIAN
‘Lively and accomplished’
Sophie Duncan, LITERARY REVIEW
‘Engaging, enthusiastic and informative’
Philip Hensher, SPECTATOR
‘Brilliant – so vivid and so sharp, fantastically clever and consistently fascinating’
KATHERINE RUNDELL, author of Super-Infinite
Was Shakespeare gay? The answer is both simpler and more complex than you might think . . .
Shakespeare’s work was profoundly influenced by the queer culture of his time – much of it totally integrated into mainstream society. From a relentless schooling in Latin and Greek homoeroticism, to a less formal education on the streets and in smoky taverns, from the gender-bending of the early comedies to the astonishingly queer literary scene that nurtured Shakespeare’s sonnets, this is a story of artistic development and of personal crisis.
Straight Acting is a surprising portrait of Shakespeare’s queer lives – his own and those in his plays and poems. It is a journey back in time and through Shakespeare’s England, revealing a culture that both endorsed and supressed same-sex desire. It is a call to stop making Shakespeare act straight and to recognise how queerness powerfully shaped the life and career of the world’s most famous playwright.
‘Magisterial and saucy . . . This fresh account kickstarts the queer canon of English literature: Shakespeare won’t go back in the closet again’
EMMA SMITH, author of This Is Shakespeare
ISBN: 9781529390513
Weight: 220g
Dimension: 196mm X 126mm
Pages: 304