Synopses & Reviews
Renaissance Configurations is a ground-breaking collection of essays on the structures and strategies of Early Modern culture—as embodied in issues of gender, sexuality and politics—by a group of critics from the new generation of specialists. The essays focus on the relations of public and private, of verbal and spatial, of textual and material, reading and re-reading texts, both canonical and non-canonical, with a textual and historical rigor often considered lacking in work with theoretical premises. The collection as a whole offers a clear sense of the direction to be taken by Early Modern studies over the next decade.
Synopsis
Preface: Renaissance Configurations; G. McMullan PART I: TURNING THE KEY 'Infinite Riches in a Little Room': Marlowe and the Aesthetics of the Closet; J. Knowles Shakespeare 'Creepes into the Women's Closets about Bedtime': Women Reading in a Room of Their Own; S. Roberts 'A Book, and Solitariness': Melancholia Gender and Literary Subjectivity in Mary Wroth's Urania; H. Hackett PART II: DESIRING DIFFERENCE Lyly and Lesbianism: Mysteries of the Closet in Sappho and Phao; M. Pincombe 'With Phoebus' Amorous Pinches Black': the Desirability of Difference in Early Modern Culture; K Chedgzoy A Rose for Emilia: Collaborative Relations in The Two Noble Kinsmen; G. Kinsmen PART III: NAMING/LOCATING Space for the Self: Place, Persona, and Self-Projection in The Comedy of Errors and Pericles; A. Piesse Calling Things By Their Names': Troping Prostitution, Politics, and The Dutch Courtesan; M. Thornton Burnett PART IV: VOICING THE PAST Spectres and Sisters: Mary Sidney and the Perennial Puzzle' of Renaissance Women's Writing; S. Trill What Echo Says in Seventeenth-Century Women's Poetry: Wroth, Behn; S.J. Wiseman Restoring the Renaissance: Margaret Cavendish and Katherine Philips; R. Ballaster Afterword; A. Thompson
About the Author
Gordon McMullan is a lecturer in English at King'sCollege, London.
Table of Contents
Introduction—Gordon McMullan *
Sexualities * John Lyly and the Elizabethan Sappho—Michael Pincombe * "Womanish Appetites" and "Virtuous Moors:" Representing Racial and Sexual Difference—Kate Chedgzoy * A Rose for Emilia: Collaboration and Sexuality in Shakespeare and Fletcher's
The Two Noble Kinsmen —Gordon McMullan *
Turning the Key * "Infinite Riches in a Little Room:" Marlowe and the Aesthetics of the Closet—James Knowles * "Shakespeare Creeps into Women's Closets Around Bedtime:" Women Reading in a Room of Their Own—Sasha Roberts * The Bride (and Groom) Wore Black: Melancholia and Gender in Mary Wroth's
Urania 2 —Helen Hackett *
Topicalities * Calling "Things by Their Right Names:" Troping Politics, Prostitution, and Marston's
Dutch Courtesan —Mark Thornton Burnett * Self-Preservation in the Shakespearean System—Amanda Piesse *
Voices * Specters and Sisters: Mary Sidney and the "Perennial Puzzle"—Suzanne Trill * What Echo Says: Politics and Hysteria in Women's Poetry, 1640-1690—Sue Wiseman * Restoring the Renaissance: Margaret Cavendish and Katherine Phillips—Ros Ballster * Afterword—Ann Thompson * Index