Celebrating the Bard in all his bawdy glory, a hilarious and insightful look into the down-and-dirty sexual puns lurking in Shakespeare's body of work

London's Elizabethan theaters were located in the seedy part of town, close to whorehouses but never far from Puritanical scorn. In that climate, Shakespeare became a master of the double entendre, crafting lines and scenes that unfolded in a variety of meaningsthe wickedly funny, the suggestively erotic, and even hard-hitting send-ups of corrupt politicians and clerics.

From The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Tempest and King Lear, the plays and poems pulsate with puns on body parts and what they do, and reveal shocking meanings beneath the brilliant codes.

Shakespeare's genius lies in his matchless understanding of the human condition, but for centuries we've been deprived of the full extent of one of his most brilliant dramatic devices. Finally, acclaimed Shakespearean scholar Pauline Kiernan unlocks the meaning behind the coded words. FILTHY SHAKESPEARE presents more than 70 examples of the Bard at his raunchiest, with each passage translated into modern English and the hidden meanings of the original words explained. A fascinating introduction shows how Shakespeare's amazing range of wordplay had its roots in the social and political reality of Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Revealing and riotously funny, FILTHY SHAKESPEARE is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to rediscover the master of the sexual pun at his most inventive, and an intriguing look into the richness and complexity of Shakespeare's language and his world.

"It's a universal truth: sex sells. Giving the audience what they wanted in the 16th century, however, meant veiling it with puns, bon mots, slang and other tricks; fortunately, Shakespeare scholar Kiernan (Shakespeare's Theory of Drama) has taken the mystery out of the Bard's deceptively graphic passages in these frank translations from some of his most popular plays. Because most students read whitewashed versions (or because most high school instructors don't want to go there), even fans may be unaware of the degree to which, for instance, Iago (Shakespeare's 'filthiest-minded character') employs sexually loaded language to rouse Roderigo's murderous lust in Act 5 of Othello: 'Quick, quick, fear nothing... and fix most firm thy resolution' seems innocuous enough until Kiernan reveals that 'nothing' means 'vagina' and 'resolution' means 'balls.' These blush-inducing transcripts render Shakespeare's work instantly contemporaneous; as it turns out, just the title of Much Ado About Nothing is easily as vulgar as anything uttered by gross-out moviemakers the Ferrelly brothers. Divided into chapters on lesbianiasm, homosexuality, virginity, sexual diseases, impotency, whores, pimps, brothels and other topics that shall here remain nameless, this jaw-dropping, giggle-inducing text proves both the Bard's enduring relevance and the fact that today's popular entertainment isn't nearly as debased as some might think." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Dr Pauline Kiernan holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she taught for many years, and is the author of the acclaimed Shakespeare's Theory of Drama (CUP). She was appointed Leverhulme Research Fellow to work on productions at the new Globe on Bankside in its first years. Her scholarship on Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama has captivated worldwide audiences.