Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality draws together 13 essays, which offer a major reassessment of the criticism of desire, body and sexuality in Shakespeare's drama and poetry. Bringing together some of the most prominent critics working at the intersection of Shakespeare criticism and queer theory, this collection demonstrates the vibrancy of queer Shakespeare studies. Taken together, these essays explore embodiment, desire, sexuality and gender as key objects of analyses, producing concepts and ideas that draw critical energy from focused studies of time, language and nature. The Afterword extends these inquiries by linking the Anthropocene and queer ecology with Shakespeare criticism. Works from Shakespeare's entire canon feature in essays which explore topics like glass, love, antitheatrical homophobia, size, narrative, sound, female same-sex desire and Petrarchism, weather, usury and sodomy, male femininity and male-to-female crossdressing, contagion, and antisocial procreation.

Introduction: 'Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality', by Goran Stanivukovic, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada1.'Which is worthiest love' in Two Gentlemen of Verona?, by David L. Orvis, Appalachan State University, USA2. 'Glass: The Sonnets' Desiring Object', by John Garrison, Carroll University USA 3. 'The Sport of Asses: A Midsummer Night's Dream', by Kirk Quinsland, Fordham University, USA4. 'As You Like It or What You Will: Shakespeare's Sonnets and Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus', by Ian F. Moulton, Arizona State University, USA5. 'The Queer Language of Size in Love's Labour's Lost', by Valerie Billing, Knox College, USA6. 'Locating Queerness in Cymbeline', by Stephen Guy-Bray, University of British Columbia, Canada7. 'Desiring H: Much Ado About Nothing and the Sound of Women's Desire', by Holly Dugan, George Washington University, USA8. '"Two lips, indifferent red:' Queer Styles in Twelfth Night', by Goran Stanivukovic, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada9. 'Queer Nature, or the Weather in Macbeth', by Christine Varnado, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA10. 'Strange Insertions in The Merchant of Venice', by Eliza Greenstadt, Portland State University, USA11. 'Male Femininity and Male-to-Female Crossdressing in Shakespeare's Plays and Poems,' by Simone Chess, Wayne State University, USA12. 'Held in Common: Romeo and Juliet and The Promiscuous Seductions of Plague', by Kathryn Schwarz, Vanderbilt University, USA13. 'Antisocial Procreation in Measure for Measure', by Melissa E. Sanchez, University of Pennsylvania, USAAfterword by Vin Nardizzi, University of British Columbia, Canada