Shakespeare liked dick jokes – I’m sure not a sentence anyone ever thought they’d read. However, while Shakespeare’s legacy holds him in status with legendary authors such as Homer, Shelley, and Twain, some deep reading into his plays, along with a strong understanding of Elizabethan English, shows a level of maturity closer to that of a middle-school boy.

Shakespeare is one of the most well known playwrights that has ever existed. His writing is taught in classes across the world, and students learn about him almost from their first day of language arts classes. However, since Shakespeare’s writing feels so unnatural and difficult to understand to the modern English reader, many of the more vulgar or inappropriate jokes “hidden” in the text may go unnoticed by all but the most dedicated scholar. In reality, Shakespeare wrote for all classes of people, from the nobility to the commonfolk. If a modern playgoer were dropped into a performance at the Globe Theater in 1600, they would be shocked at what they saw. Audiences openly applauded, booed, or jeered the actors throughout the show, instead of patiently and quietly waiting for the proper moments, such as what is typical for today’s performance culture. Shopkeepers would sell their wares in the theater, prostitutes and pickpockets regularly made their rounds during shows, and, due to a lack of public bathrooms, attendees simply answered Nature’s call in nearby fields or outside the theater. Knowing this, Shakespeare made an effort to ensure his plays were accessible to people from all walks of life. They weren’t the typical proper, uptight stories that one might imagine for a playwright for the time. Shakespeare’s plays were written to be funny, to interact with the audience, and to offer options to people whose only other forms of entertainment were public executions. And what better way to make people laugh than by using dick jokes?

Shakespeare was sometimes criticized by nobility for being too outright with his jokes, and they weren’t entirely wrong. He even hid sexual innuendos in the titles of some of his works. Take, for example, his 1599 play Much Ado About Nothing takes advantage of the double-meaning of the word “nothing” in Elizabethan English. The title of the play makes sense to modern readers as it is – basically translating to a lot of fuss for no reason, or a bunch of people crying over a couple drops of spilled milk. However, in Elizabethan English, the word “nothing” has the double meaning of a certain part of the female anatomy, making the love story in the play a lot clearer.

Shakespeare doesn’t hide his jokes just in the titles – he writes references all throughout his plays, including some in Much Ado About Nothing. In Act 5, Scene 3, Benedict tells his love, Beatrice, “I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.” (101) Many Elizabethan Era poets wrote frequently about dying for love. However, they weren’t always necessarily talking about actual death. Oftentimes, death was another way of referring to orgasms, typically from the male perspective. So while it is likely that Benedict would be happy to die for his love, it is even more likely that he has a different kind of end in mind for himself at that moment.

Shakespeare’s sex jokes don’t stop at Much Ado About Nothing. In his poem ‘Venus and Adonis’, he writes “Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, / Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.” (233) It is likely that, even to the modern reader, this line needs no explanation as to its sexual meanings. Other examples include Othello, Act 1, Scene 1, “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs…” (129) and Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 2, 

“Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done?

Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.

Chiron: Thou has undone our mother.

Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.” (77)

In one of Shakespeare’s most notable plays, Romeo and Juliet, Juliet’s nursemaid reminisces on when Juliet was a toddler and often fell on her face when she was learning to walk. In Act 1, Scene 3, the nursemaid ends her remembrances by telling Juliet “Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit.” (46) She hints to Juliet that it would now be more likely that the girl will fall on her back instead of on her front – another sexual innuendo that hardly needs explaining. Later in the play (Act 5, Scene 3), as she plans to stab herself, Juliet speaks to Romeo’s corpse, telling him “O, happy dagger, This is thy sheath./  There rust, and let me die.” (174) In many Elizabethan poems and plays, the symbol of a dagger and a sheath represents two people coming together in love. In this case, Juliet calls herself the sheath for Romeo’s dagger, which symbolizes both their love for each other and Juliet sheathing the dagger in her chest so she can be with Romeo in death after they were parted in life.

If you asked nearly any modern reader what they thought about Shakespeare, it is likely you would get something along the lines of “boring”, “complicated”, “hard to understand”, etc. However, with a little bit of deep reading and a decent grasp of Elizabethan slang, it quickly becomes clear why Shakespeare was so popular with audiences of his time, and remains popular with Elizabethan scholars to this day.