> The footnotes assured us that all kinds of funny jokes and puns were being made,
The worst part about those high school Shakespeare texts was that for the humour that was blatantly sexual, they tried to find some contrived explanation to present instead.
For example take a passage: "She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my departure, / shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter."
This is a reference to the "maids" being played by male actors. The text had some contrived explanation about if the play were shorter in length, when really the line is clearly a joke about CUTTING OFF A PENIS.
When you miss the fact that Shakespeare is just full of eighth grade schoolboy humour, then you actually miss a lot of the point.
The worst part about those high school Shakespeare texts was that for the humour that was blatantly sexual, they tried to find some contrived explanation to present instead.
For example take a passage: "She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my departure, / shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter."
This is a reference to the "maids" being played by male actors. The text had some contrived explanation about if the play were shorter in length, when really the line is clearly a joke about CUTTING OFF A PENIS.
When you miss the fact that Shakespeare is just full of eighth grade schoolboy humour, then you actually miss a lot of the point.