March 23: Shakespearean Innuendo

I found yet another absolutely amazing resource on the internet, a PDF of an entire 361-page book called "Shakespeare's Sexual Language: a Glossary" by Gordon Williams, a volume of the "Student Shakespeare Library", originally published in 1997. Williams writes in his short introduction that, "The sexual element in Shakespeare is extensive, varied, and probably innovative at times" (pg. 2). Most of the book is simply a glossary of words in alphabetical order (maybe more accurately a concordance?) that lists examples of Shakespeare's erotic and bawdy writing, some of which are the earliest recorded usages of words to mean something sexual. Hundreds of words are listed, with citations of which of Shakespeare's works the words are found, and information about how the word was intended as innuendo. For last week's Jeo-Party, I had already discovered the hidden double meaning of the title of one of Shakespeare's works, "Much Ado About Nothing". Apparently "nothing" is a play on words with a near-homophone of "noting", something the characters do a lot of (checking each other out, falling in love/lust, infidelity, etc). It is also a reference to the Elizabethan slang for "vagina", an "O-thing". Both facts check out in this new resource I found. I spent hours reading it yesterday, and made lists of the best words to use for my sexy homonyms round in Jeo-Party. Just when I thought I was running out of runs that meant "to have sex with", I found tons more! 

Reading all these dirty Shakespearean jokes made me remember a fun fact I learned in my AP English class back in High School when we were reading "Hamlet". People who were too poor to pay for a seat at the Globe Theatre to see a play could pay a penny to stand in the the pit, or yard, surrounding the stage. They started being known as 'groundlings' after Hamlet referenced them when the play was first performed around 1600. Hamlet says: "O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings."

Groundlings were a loud, boisterous group of "common folk" and made up a large proportion of the audience at any performance.  One of the things that made Shakespeare’s plays stand out from others at the time was that no matter how serious, how philosophical, how ‘educated' the subject material may have been, Shakespeare always included something for the common people. Shakespeare’s plays were notable for their wide range of appeal, including crude jokes, slapstick burlesque, and lower-class characters (for the groundlings), as much as refined emotions, intellectual ideas, and monarchs (for the upper class). In high school, we started thinking of the groundlings as those with dirty minds, and a few of us even got T-shirts with "Groundling" proudly written on the front (we were the smart geeky kids with dirty minds). 

I delighted to have an electronic version of this glossary for groundlings, and I look forward to sharing everything I am learning with my friends during Jeo-Party!

With delight,

♥Jamie