Germaine Greer, William Shakespeare, and Turned-on Housewives

More from England's Hay Festival: Germaine Greer claims William Shakespeare brought erotic poetry to "ordinary women" such as wives and servants, for the first time. "This is something you won't have heard anyone say before, and I'm going to say it to you now," Greer announced at Hay Festival. More from U.K.'s Telegraph:

He may be Britain's greatest writer, celebrated 400 years on for his body of plays and sonnets.

But William Shakespeare left one other long-forgotten legacy, it has been claimed: bringing erotic poetry to housewives.

Germaine Greer, the feminist academic who lectures on Shakespeare, said the writer should be credited with introducing naughty poems to women and servants for the first time.

Speaking at Hay Festival, sponsored by the Telegraph, she said Shakespeare in fact rose to fame for his Venus and Adonis, a "perverse, erotic, burlesque", which became a huge bestseller among ordinary women.

[...]

"Shakespeare has been famous in England since 1593, but he wasn't famous for a play or a selection of plays. He was famous for a narrative poem: for Venus and Adonis.

It's written in the vernacular, which meant that women could read it and servants could read it.

"The erotic poetry which had been the province of scholars and gentleman was suddenly being read by every housewife. She was supposed to have a copy of Venus and Adonis under her pillow."

Continue at Telegraph.