Ruff Reads

History books have painted a very white picture of Elizabethan England. Let’s challenge that narrative.

Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare by Will Tosh

Thursday March 27th at 8pm on Zoom

DM us or contact christine@shakespeareintheruff.com for the Zoom link. (Don’t have time to read the book but still interested in the conversation? Join us anyway!) 

Straight Acting is available at Queen Books (10% off with the code RUFFREADS), the Toronto Public Library, as an Audiobook and as an eBook. Also check out our December 31s, 2024 Ruff Radio episode with author Will Tosh!

From the Publisher:

Was Shakespeare gay? The answer is both simpler and more complex than you might think . . .

Shakespeare’s work was profoundly influenced by the queer culture of his time – much of it totally integrated into mainstream society. From a relentless schooling in Latin and Greek homoeroticism, to a less formal education on the streets and in smoky taverns, from the gender-bending of the early comedies to the astonishingly queer literary scene that nurtured Shakespeare’s sonnets, this is a story of artistic development and of personal crisis.

Straight Acting is a surprising portrait of Shakespeare’s queer lives – his own and those in his plays and poems. It is a journey back in time and through Shakespeare’s England, revealing a culture that both endorsed and supressed same-sex desire. It is a call to stop making Shakespeare act straight and to recognise how queerness powerfully shaped the life and career of the world’s most famous playwright.

About Will Tosh:

Will is interim Director of Education (Higher Education and Research) at Shakespeare’s Globe, where he is responsible for undergraduate and postgraduate course, events for adult learners, and the Globe’s scholarly research programme. Will researches and writes about the literature and culture of Shakespeare’s England, and his work at the Globe includes dramaturgy, new writing development, and public engagement in person, in the media and online.Will is the author of Playing Indoors: Staging Early Modern Drama in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (2018), and Male Friendship and Testimonies of Love in Shakespeare’s England (2016), which revealed the intimate social circle of the Elizabethan spy Anthony Bacon. His most recent book is Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, which was published to wide acclaim in 2024. Will writes and reviews regularly for academic journals as well as the Times Literary Supplement and other news publications.

Do you love Shakespeare but struggle with the seemingly inherent racism? This book is for you.

The Great White Bard by Farah Karim-Cooper