Shakespeare on Consent

by Amanda Bailey

Choice is the defining issue of the twenty-first century. As the #MeToo movement extends its legal, social, and political reach around the world, the topic of consent has come under particular scrutiny. Shakespeare on Consent examines crises of consent on the early modern stage and argues that these dramatizations provide a framework for understanding the intersections of coercion, complicity, resistance, and agency. Beginning with the premise that consent serves as a lever of entitlement, Amanda Bailey introduces a Shakespeare well aware that liberal selfhood has never been universally available. Bailey brings Shakespeare’s work into conversation with the Penn State Sandusky scandal, the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair, the rise of "somnophilia," Jordan Peele’s documentary on Lorena Bobbitt, Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm , and Harvey Weinstein’s Shakespeare in Love , amongst others. Bailey considers who is denied access to the apparatus of consent, under what circumstances, and how consent is vitiated by race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and gender. Shakespeare on Consent is a wake-up call for all implicated in the injurious outcomes of consent and will inspire those wanting to mobilize choice in the service of social and political transformation.

210 pages, Paperback

Published March 10, 2023

About the author

Amanda Bailey lives in Virginia in her dream home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. She enjoys staying home with her two children and husband, watching movies and reality TV, and reading books. She writes what she loves to read--swoon-worthy romance with a little angst thrown in on the side. ★

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Reviews

[Abby Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

so excellent! i’m not a shakespeare girl in any sense but this was really so great. i really loved the final chapter about depp v heard. very nuanced and interesting to me.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting. While Shakespeare is in the title, this feels to be less about his works than to be an insightful intervention into a host of debates around the topic of consent, using Shakespeare's works as a window into thinking in different ways about that topic. It's a quick read, and absolutely up to the minute in terms of its engagement with hot buttons like #metoo and BLM and campus rape. Bailey questions whether authentic consent is ever possible. She interjects the question of race into this fraught issue. She ends up at times offering a sharp critique of things like #metoo, but from the left rather than the right: "The long and troubled history of unleashing retribution in the service of protecting white female integrity is one of the many challenges the #MeToo movement has yet to contend with." Particularly compelling is a reading of Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece. There are a couple of errors with respect to particular plays (Lavinia doesn't kill herself in the woods in Titus Andronicus, for instance), but these don't detract from some compelling rereadings of Shakespeare as applied to contemporary issues.

[Justin Chai · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this slim book, Amanda Bailey shows her strength as a writer and thinker. As the topic of consent has reached new highs of scrutiny through movements like #MeToo, Bailey connects Shakespeare's work to real-life scandals and phenomena. She dives into the intricacies of consent and the oversimplification and abuse of the modern sense of the word.