Shakespeare's Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture

Agnès Lafont is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Studies in the English Department at Université Paul Valery Montpellier III, France.

’This collection of essays adds much to our knowledge of the many ways in which Ovid, the sexiest poet of late Antiquity, influenced Shakespeare, the sexiest poet of the late sixteenth century. [...]One would like to think that this timely and important volume consisting of essays that are all of equal strength could encourage further research in the creative appropriation of Ovid in England through continental routes of influence, especially with a critical eye on how Ovid shaped fictions and languages of sexuality, and how crucial the impact of his writing was on the expanding notions of the body in early modernity.’ CATHIERS '... this is an inspiring and often-fascinating volume.' Renaissance Quarterly '... the collection will be of interest to scholars of literature, as well as scholars of the visual and plastic arts, whose geographic focus includes England and larger Western Europe. ... scholars will find that this collection contains many new insights and also points to new directions in the study of Ovid in the Renaissance.' Sixteenth Century Journal

• Introduction Interacting with Eros: Ovid and Shakespeare, Agnès Lafont; Part I Erotic Aesthetics and Printing Politics; Chapter 1 Ovid’s ‘Meta-metamorphosis’: Book Illustration and the Circulation of Erotic Iconographical Patterns, Ilaria Andreoli; Chapter 2 Political Uses of Erotic Power in an Elizabethan Mythological Programme: Dangerous Interactions with Diana in Hardwick Hall, Agnès Lafont; Part II Shakespeare’s Erotic Power of Imagination; Chapter 3 Erotic Fancy/Fantasy in Venus and Adonis, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Antony and Cleopatra, François Laroque; Chapter 4 Erotic Perspectives: When Pyramus and Thisbe Meet Hero and Leander in Romeo and Juliet, Janice Valls-Russell; Part III Shakespeare’s Erotic Power of Recreation (and Miscreation); Chapter 5 Priapus in Shakespeare: From Luxuriant Gardens to Luxurious Brothels, Frédéric Delord; Chapter 6 Parody and the Erotic Beast: Relocating Titania and Bottom, Stuart Sillars; Chapter 7 Cupid, Infantilism and Maternal Desire on the Early Modern Stage, Jane Kingsley-Smith; Chapter 8 Queering Pygmalion: Ovid, Euripides and The Winter’s Tale, Sarah Annes Brown; Chapter 9 The ‘new Gorgon’: Eros, Terror and Violence in Macbeth, Marguerite A. Tassi; Part IV Coda; Chapter 10 Femmina masculo e masculo femmina: Ovidian Mythical Structures, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and As You Like It, Yves Peyré;