Queer Renaissance Historiography: Backward Gaze

Presented by Nardizzi (English, U. of British Columbia, Canada), Guy-Bray (English, U. of British Columbia), and Stockton (English, Ball State U., US), 11 essays explore sexuality in the Renaissance from the perspective of queer theory. The papers discuss such topics as erotic bodily contact in the poem Hero and Leander, worship of the goddess Diana as a space for the expression of Renaissance lesbianism, intimacy in the secretarial service that women performed for other women in Renaissance England as a form of political dissent, service and homosociality in the Tudor government as revealed in The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, the depiction of the prince's erotic life in Shakespeare's Henriad, sexuality and politics in the poems of Katherine Phillips, and homosexual desire in the depiction of Adam and Eve in Milton's Paradise Lost. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Stephen Guy-Bray is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada, Vin Nardizzi, Assistant Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada and Will Stockton, Assistant Professor of English at Ball State University, US