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Full Description
Love and sex are pre-eminent subjects of Renaissance literature; however, attitudes toward these topics were hardly uniform. The discourses of desire from this period embrace works as dissimilar as sonnets on frustrated love and libertine invitations to lust. Writers both idealised and demystified sex, alternately equating it with religious transcendence or exposing it as a mere bodily itch. The 15 essays in this volume clarify the sexual beliefs and prohibitions of the Renaissance period and examine the manifestations of those ideas. "Renaissance Discourses of Desire" confronts important questions about the relationship of sexuality and textuality in the period using a variety of critical methods and ideological presuppositions. Some of the essays focus on the intertwining of political and sexual discourse, the difference between men and women as desiring subjects, and the erotics of criticism. The representation of homoerotics and homosexuality is discussed, as is the impact of economic and social ideologies on love poetry and sexual expression.
Among the texts explored are works by Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Carew, Herrick, Suckling, Burton, Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn and Milton. With their varied approaches, these essays illustrate the richness of the topic and its susceptibility to a number of critical techniques. Illuminating important authors and significant texts, the essays collected here aim to contribute to a fuller understanding of the complexities and range of 17th century discourses of desire, while also helping to chart the outlines of the period's sexual ideologies and anxieties.
Contents
The Poetics of Eroticism - Shakespeare's "Master Mistress", Raymond B. Waddington; "Semper Eadem" - Belphoebe's Denial of Desire, Mary Villeponteaux; Loves as a Spectator Sport in John Donne's Poetry, William Shullenberger; The Sapphic Voice in Donne's "Sapho to Philaenis", Stella P. Revard; Donne's Catholic Petrarchans - the Babylonian Captivity of Desire, Theresa M. DiPasquale; Thomas Carew - Patronage, Family and New-Model Love, Anthony Low; The Rack of Fancy and the Trade of Love - Conventions of "Precieux" and "Libertin" in Amatory Lyrics by Suckling and Carew, M.L. Donnelly; Robert Herrick and the Erotics of Criticism, Roger B. Rollin; Renaissance Awareness and Language for Heterosexuality - "Love" and "Feminine Love", Joseph Cady; Burton's Use of "Praeteritio" in Discussing Same-Sex Relationships, Winifred Schleiner; Fantasising a Sexual Golden Age in 17th-Century Poetry, Eugene R. Cunnar; Sexual Politics/Political Sex - 17th-Century Love Poetry, Achsah Guibbory; Subversive Sexuality - Masking the Erotic in Poems by Katherine Philips and Aphra Behn, Arlene Stiebel; Demystifying Disguises - Adam, Eve and the Subject of Desire, Catherine Gimelli Martin; Excerpts from a Panel Discussion, Paul G. Stanwood et al.
