Filthy Shakespeare: The Bawdy Bard Revealed

(Hardcover) By Pauline Kiernan

Reviewed by By Gabrielle Pantera

Rating: HHH

He gave all the vices of the day equal time. Some were wittily funny. Some were erotic. Shakespeare’s words and lines had a variety of meanings. He didn’t leave out politics, either.

     Hidden meanings and secrets were the order of the Elizabethan day. To counter plots against the crown, Elizabeth I, with the help of Sir Francis Walsingham, had just founded the secret service, the forerunner  of today’s M15 and M16.  Shakespeare wrote in such a way that his audience needed to decode his meaning. With so many possible meanings, your neighbor at the theater might not be laughing at the same thing you’re laughing at.

     During Elizabethan times, theaters were not far from the brothels and whorehouses in London. There may not have been women on the stage, but there were plenty in the audience.

     Over the years, bits and pieces of Shakespeare’s work were censored out of his plays. His puns and double entendres were almost completely removed from a few of his works and his understanding of the human condition was hidden from modern readers due to the puritanical outlook of his world and that after his death.

     Author Pauline Kiernan’s diligence in figuring out more then seventy coded meanings is revealed in Filthy Shakespeare. From A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Romeo and Juliet to Henry IV, Shakespeare cloaked references to sex and politics to make audiences think. It also shocked. Kiernan painstakingly translates the hidden meanings and also translates scenes into modern English. Unfortunately, that translation is more scholarly than as broad entertainment. Very explicit, a great gift for anyone who loves Shakespeare, but a little dry.

     Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Most Outrageous Sexual Puns, Hardcover: 304 pages  Publisher: Gotham (October 4, 2007) Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1592403271

Gabrielle Pantera is the book reviewer for the British Weekly and a screenwriter.