Between the Lines

An Early Modern Dildo Shop This week is Valentine's Day and I was reminded of the little known bawdy Valentine's Day poem written by Thomas Nashe. The Choise of Valentine s, or The   Merie Ballad of Nash his Dildo, is believed to have been composed around 1593 and exists in three extant manuscripts, but was not published in print until 1899. I first came across this poem while researching sex in Shakespeare and was struck by it's explicit language and humorous wit.  The poem is erotic in nature and sexually explicit, but is wrapped in humour and wit and framed in a classical style inspired by Ovid. The eroticism of the poem is very explicit, verging on pornographic, and accusations arose against Nashe for 'prostituting his pen'. While the poem is not of any significant literary value, it is an interesting insight into sex and erotic writing in the early modern period and is perhaps most significant for being the first known usage of the word 'dildo' in...

With my dissertation well under way, I hope to use this blog to think through some of my ideas and share the direction of my writing. The overarching aim of my dissertation, titled Large and Spacious Will: Sex and Sexuality in Shakespeare's Sonnets , is to attempt to reclaim the 'dark lady' from a figure which functions merely as an example of misogynist discourse to a woman who is a rebel and a threat to patriarchy and social order. To achieve this aim, I am taking an intersection approach. The oppression of race, class, gender, sexuality and many other spheres of oppression are always interlinked and inseparable and so, in my analysis of the sonnets, I feel it is important to consider the role of race, class, gender and sexuality. In this blog I want to outline some of the ways in which the woman of sonnets 127-154, sometimes known as the 'dark lady', disrupts class structures. The first 18 of Shakespeare's sonnets urge a fair young man to procreate in ord...

I have decided to use this blog to track some of my research ideas and findings as I begin the process of writing my Masters dissertation. The following is the script of a presentation I delivered on the 25th of May 2017. The conference was a chance to explore our dissertation proposals, and I delivered my paper in a session chaired by Professor Phillip Schwyzer titled: Early Modern Discourses: Bodies, Politics, Performance. Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady': A Sexual Revolutionary? Hello, I am Antonio Hehir, and I have been conducting research into sex and sexuality in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Today, I want to talk a little bit about the Dark Lady of the sonnets and how we can seek to redefine her and to ask the question: Was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets a sexual revolutionary? When it comes to the sonnets, there has been a tendency among Shakespeare scholars to focus on the ‘Fair Youth’ sonnets (1-126) and much of that focus has orbited around a biographical...

How now reader? With my Masters course entering that busy time of year, I have been inundated with work and the blog has been somewhat neglected (and will probably continue to be so). Having said that, I thought I would take a few minutes to share some thoughts on Romeo and Juliet 's infamous balcony scene and the importance of naming and denaming. In Romeo and Juliet names are an integral part of the character’s lives - particularly their family name. Whether they are Montague or Capulet will determine who they can associate with and where they can go in Verona. Shakespeare knew the importance of titles in early modern England first hand. In the same year he wrote this play, his father, John Shakespeare, was refused the right to a coat of arms, and the use of the title “gentleman” that came with it. In 1596, Shakespeare himself was successful in renewing the petition on the family's behalf. Shakespeare had also already written about perhaps the most famou...