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Homoerotic Space

The Poetics of Loss in Renaissance Literature

Stephen Guy-Bray author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Toronto Press

Published:25th May '02

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Homoerotic Space cover

'Both Renaissance and classical queer scholarship will be enriched by this book sparkling with provocative arguments and fresh analyses. Guy-Bray's knowledge of the classics is admirable and his reading of the Renaissance uses of them is impressive.' -- Goran Stanivukovic, Department of English, St. Mary's University

Stephen Guy-Bray argues that early modern authors used renditions of Theocritan and Virgilian pastoral, as well as epic poetry, for the exploration and the allusive presentation of homoerotic and homosocial themes.

Sexual politics in the Renaissance dictated a strong opposition to any kind of homoerotic attachments, or discussion thereof, forcing Renaissance poets and playwrights to find other means of representing these connections. In this compelling and intriguing work, Stephen Guy-Bray argues that early modern authors used renditions of Theocritan and Virgilian pastoral, as well as epic poetry, for the exploration and the allusive presentation of homoerotic and homosocial themes.

Drawing on the poetry and plays by such authors as Castiglione, the Earl of Surrey, Milton, Spenser, Barnfield, William Browne, Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher, Guy-Bray investigates how some authors used these classical models to represent homoeroticism, while others found the inherent homoeroticism of these poems to be problematic. Discussing both content and form of Renaissance and Classical literature, Guy-Bray's work engages in an important and frequently heated debate about the history of homoeroticism as well as questions of literary history and the interpretation of texts.

  • Winner of Raymond Klibansky Prize, Canadian Foundation for the Humanities & Social Sciences 2003 (Canada)

ISBN: 9780802036773

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 25mm

Weight: 570g

320 pages