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Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of Sydney

Venus and Adonis: this 'play within a plague' about Shakespeare is wildly romantic, erotic and colourful

Kate Williams/Seymour Centre and Sport For Jove

Shakespeare wrote his famous narrative poem Venus and Adonis in a lockdown era when, in 1593, the bubonic plague closed the theatres in London for 18 months.

In Shakespeare’s poem Venus, the Roman goddess of love, continuously tries to seduce the human Adonis, who would rather go hunting with the lads than be caught kissing a goddess.

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