Sticking up for Shakespeare ... Germaine Greer. Photograph: David Levenson/ Getty

Why write about Shakespeare's wife? If Germaine Greer was still "part of the Shakespeare establishment" she certainly wouldn't have done it. But there was that pile of work about the love and marriage in the 16th century which had never quite found an outlet, and then there was Stephen Greenblatt's book.

Listen now to Germaine Greer's account of how she couldn't believe Shakespeare was enough of a creep to hate his wife and still not leave her.

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