Customer Reviews

Sex in Elizabethan England

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

[Note, I read Alan Haynes' 1997 book "Untam'd Desire: Sex in Elizabethan England"; I suspect this is merely a re-titling; but I'm not sure whether there are other differences.]

In short, fascinating subject matter hampered by a needlessly complex writing style.

The author is in love with his own cleverness, and seems to purposely obscure meaning in favor of sounding erudite. Take the line "for many quotidian behaviour caused a slide of such things into desuetude." That could be written much more clearly as "for many, daily behavior caused such things to slide into disuse." In fact, there are several other places the author uses "quotidian" where the more intelligible word "daily" would suffice. I have a rather extensive vocabulary, and still wanted to have an OED beside me much of the time.

Similarly, Haynes drops names all over the place, without much elaboration or explanation. You should already have a fair knowledge of Elizabethan history (literary and court politics) before attempting this book. It's easy to get lost when he drops asides like "not long after that lamentable fracas at Mrs. Bull's" -- if you didn't already know that Marlowe was killed in May 1593 at the house of Eleanor Bull, you'd be lost.

A lot of this book did go over my head. But if you can learn to skim somewhat and pick up the gist, it's still quite an interesting read. I found the details about daily life in Elizabethan England both fascinating and entertaining. Although I've done a great deal of reading recently about Elizabethan society, I still learned a lot, and came up with new topics and titles that I want to explore further.

And, though I was put off by his writing style, I still want to seek out another of his books, titled "Elizabethan Secret Services" -- so it's not *that* off-putting.

I'm used to reading dry academic articles on fascinating subjects, but I unlike other reviewers, I can't say this was particularly dry. It's just badly written. There are infinite grammatical errors ranging from missing periods, to sentences that switch directions in the middle of reading them, to an appalling lack of editing (ever heard of a thing called a comma?). Usually I can get my head around complex sentence structures, but Haynes' writing is a joke. Where was his editor in all of this?

I'd say don't bother with this book, even if you're willing to slog through the pedantic and error-filled paragraphs. His minimal use of documentation and his embarrassing lack of understanding of Shakespeare, on whom he relies hugely to outline his concepts, will just madden the serious researcher and confuse the casual reader. I can't believe I picked this up at the Museum of London... Their publications are usually far superior to this tripe. Don't waste your money or your time.

I found the book to be knowledgable and thorough, but extremely dry and hard to read. I could not believe that someone could make a subject like this so dry. ...P>That said, you won't find too many straightforward sources like this, and it's got some neat photos and portrait reproductions that make the book worth getting. The information contained herein isn't particularly suited to children, but it isn't shocking or titillating. It reads more like a lecture by a very prim history prof. Anybody of any morals should be able to digest this without dying of offensensitivity.

I found this book to be better than the reviews. But to appreciate it, one needs to be familiar with the people Haynes mentions, otherwise it can be confusing. Once you know who'se who, this book comes alive with details never mentioned anywhere else. The Earl of Essex, Penolope Rich, his sister, and many others have surprising secrets revealed about them. I would highly recommend for people doing research in this area. The writing is much better than one review mentions. In a way, it's the Elizabethan equivalent of People Magazine

For some reason, I expected this book to be a bit dull. Also -- I don't know much about Elizabethan England, so based on some of the reviews I was hesitant.
I did find it a bit too... complex at times. There were several points where I had to reread paragraphs a few times to understand his meaning and other times he would familiarly reference material he didn't quote.
I'm not sure if the problem is that parts of his orginal manuscript were cut, or if he is just so familiar with his material that he doesn't always realize that his readers don't have Everad Guilpin's bawdy epigrams in from of them.
But he has such an obvious love for and knowledge of his material that its not a burden to try to follow his sometimes complex writing style to find the wonderful nuggets of information within. Thanks to him, I have added to my "to read" list (sometimes a bad thing, but these are references I have been looking for). While his focus is on sex, he pulls it into the wider culture of Elizabethan England and brings details I've always wanted to know into a sharper focus. Exactly what I wanted -- I hope his other books are just as enjoyable because I'll be looking into them.

I have already written two reviews of this book, the latest of which was written on Februarty 16th 2003. None of these has been published. Is there something going on that I should know about?