NPR covered the publication of Bob Dylan scholar Clinton Heylin's new book So Long as Men Can Breathe: The Untold Story of Shakespeare's Sonnets, yesterday -- on the anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 1609. According to the NPR report Heylin is a proponent of the theory that the sonnets chronicle a homosexual love affair between the author and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke – one of the fraternal grand possessors of the 1623 first folio of Shakespeare’s works. Heylin comes at his subject from a Stratfordian perspective and is of the opinion that the sonnets were never meant for publication, like Dylan's "basement tapes". An excerpt from Heylin's book is posted on the NPR site.
James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said. “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.” She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out the naug
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