"Stanley Wells' new book considers how far sexual meaning in Shakespeare's writing is a matter of interpretation by actors, directors and critics. Tracing interpretations of Shakespearian bawdy and innuendo from eighteenth-century editors to modern scholars and critics, Wells plays special attention to recent sexually oriented studies of A Midsummer Night's Dream, once regarded as the most innocent of its author's plays. He considers the sonnets, some of which are addressed to a man, and asks whether they imply same-sex desire in the author, or are quasi-dramatic projections of the writer's imagination. Finally, he looks at how male-to-male relationships in the plays have been interpreted as sexual in both criticism and performance. Stanley Wells's book will appeal to a broad readership of students, theatregoers and Shakespeare lovers."--Jacket.