📜 I fear that between now and the EOY my account(s) are going to take a turn and just become a Shakespeare fan account.
To make this overload more palpable for my small list of followers (thank u) I am going to review his works along the way in a low stakes way (unless I feel compelled to write a blog about it… which is highly likely…)
OKAY. Finished reading: Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare 📚
4/5 ★★★★
This was Shakespeare’s best selling work during his lifetime because of how erotic and sensual it was. People of the day considered it risqué and moralists were outraged (but probably bought it too). It’s essentially Venus trying to sleep with Adonis the entire time and this girl is beggggging for it.
In Defining Early Modern Pornography: The Case of “Venus and Adonis, Thauvette adds brilliant insight like how gender roles are mixed & so on! Also she adds context about how it was talked about in 1593, what made it even more “pornographic” – some guy took it from his wife and it made the news, a celebrity at the time kept it under his pillow, lol.
All in all I really liked it. It is dazzling and sexy. Attaching one of the best parts lol
Also loved this bit about the rabbit 🐇
how he outruns the wind, and with what care / He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles.
