Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe

This exploration of sexuality and gender in Renaissance art and literature starts from an assumption that would have seemed unthinkable a generation ago: that the natural phenomena of sex gender and subjectivity are constructed rather than essentially biological or fixed. The essays in this collection rise to the challenge of producing a new post-Foucaultian history of gender and sexuality. All of them have been influenced by feminism and several deal with women not just as objects of representation but as subjects and authors in their own right. Among the historical issues examined are the production and suppression of women's voices the relation between illicit sexuality and social order the ambiguity of beauty lesbian erotics birth-imagery and the birthing ritual the class status of women the feminity of masculine dress and the sexual politics of courtesy. The volume provides a new perspective on the literature art and society of Renaissance Italy France and England.