And in His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said’s Sultanate of Oman, the few minutes of total privacy after the call to prayer were my best chance. And I wouldn’t want to make Him uncomfortable. I needed to speak, too, but not with God. All around the country, men and women paused their work to speak with Allah. Even the owner of the Internet café had run to the mosque across the street to pray.
I tilted my head past the edge of the curtain and scanned the room. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5.1 1.1 A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Stand and Unfold Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,ĭoth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven One sees more devils than vast hell can hold Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, MENTIONED IN The Taming of the Shrew, 4.2 Contentsġ.1 A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Stand and UnfoldĢ.2 The Winter’s Tale: An Aspect More FavorableĢ.3 Romeo and Juliet: These Violent DelightsĢ.4 The Taming of the Shrew: Rough with Loveģ.3 Love’s Labor’s Lost: Wonder of the Worldģ.4 Antony and Cleopatra: Here Is My Space Is the most important part of the whole matter. There is art to drive fleet chariots, and
Read this, and learn by reading how to love.īy art the swift ships are propelled with sail and oar Should anyone here not know the loving art, Each stands accused of traumatic potential of its own. Other sources of concern may include: tortured metaphors, magical realism, heavy-handed literary references, literal and figurative navel-gazing, my opinions, and the state of North Dakota. These include but are not limited to sexual and physical violence, rape, racism, homophobia, colonialism, drug and alcohol use, and disease. So I will be clear: This book discusses themes and events that reflect the Shakespearean canon, including its darker elements. But some people feel they are helpful, and I don’t want to impose my personal preferences onto anyone else. However, from time to time, when I felt like it, I embraced literary anarchy and made my own punctuation choices. In block quotes, I’ve usually followed the punctuation in The Riverside Shakespeare, Second Edition.
I am grateful to Peng, Nikolai, and both Davids, who generously allowed me to use their real names. Dialogue has been re-created to the best of my recollection and evokes the spirit of the conversations when possible, I also pulled direct quotes from journal entries, emails, instant message conversations, and cell phone texts. When I did have to change identifying details, I made every effort to change them in a way that keeps feelings, motivations, cultural context, and emotional truth intact. Most names have been changed, as have, when necessary, some other identifying details, including nationality, occupation, educational background, or event location. To that end, I have gone to great lengths to shield their identities to such an extent that, in a few cases, even their own families would not be able to recognize them. This book describes the sexual orientations and experiences of people who deserve discretion. In Sex with Shakespeare, words are love.Īs Keenan wanders the world in search of connection, from desert dictatorships to urban islands to disputed territories, Shakespeare goes with her -and provokes complex, surprising, and wildly important conversations about sexuality, consent, and the secrets that simmer beneath our surfaces. Moving through the canon, Keenan makes it abundantly clear that literature is a conversation. In Macbeth, she examines criminalized sexual identities and the dark side of “privacy.” The Taming of the Shrew goes inside the secret world of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism, while King Lear exposes the ill-fated king as a possible sexual predator. In A Midsummer Night ’s Dream, Keenan unmasks Helena as a sexual masochist-like Jillian herself. With fourteen of his plays as a springboard, she explores the many facets of love and sexuality-from desire and communication to fetish and fantasy. In Sex with Shakespeare, she tells the story of how the Bard’s plays helped her embrace her unusual sexual identity and find a love story of her own.įour hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, Keenan’s smart and passionate memoir brings new life to his work. When it came to understanding love, a teenage Jillian Keenan had nothing to guide her-until a production of The Tempest sent Shakespeare’s language flowing through her blood for the first time. A provocative, moving, kinky, and often absurdly funny memoir about Shakespeare, love, obsession, and spanking