The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England

Traub analyzes the representation of female-female love and eroticism in early modern literature and drama.

Valerie Traub (Author)

9780521444279, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 June 2002

510 pages, 29 b/w illus.
25.6 x 18 x 3.4 cm, 1.008 kg

'…[F]rank and enabling engagement with large methodological debates about sexuality…'. The Times Literary Supplement

The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England is the eagerly-awaited study by the feminist scholar who was among the first to address the issue of early modern female homoeroticism. Valerie Traub analyzes the representation of female-female love, desire and eroticism in a range of early modern discourses, including poetry, drama, visual arts, pornography and medicine. Contrary to the silence and invisibility typically ascribed to lesbianism in the Renaissance, Traub argues that the early modern period witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of representations of such desire. By means of sophisticated interpretations of a comprehensive set of texts, the book not only charts a crucial shift in representations of female homoeroticism over the course of the seventeenth century, but also offers a provocative genealogy of contemporary lesbianism. A contribution to the history of sexuality and to feminist and queer theory, the book addresses current theoretical preoccupations through the lens of historical inquiry.

Acknowledgements
List of illustrations
Introduction: 'practicing impossibilities'
1. Setting the stage behind the seen: performing Lesbian history
2. 'A certaine incredible excesse of pleasure': female orgasm, prosthetic pleasures, and the anatomical Pudica
3. The politics of pleasure
or, queering Queen Elizabeth
4. The (in)significance of Lesbian desire
5. The psychomorphology of the clitoris
or, the reemergence of the Tribade in England
6. Chaste femme love, mythological pastoral, and the perversion of Lesbian desire
7. 'Friendship so curst': Amor Impossibilia, the homoerotic lament, and the nature of Lesbian desire
8. The quest for origins, erotic similitude, and the melancholy of Lesbian identification
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Gay & Lesbian studies [JFSK], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]