Same-Sex Desire in the English Renaissance

Kenneth Borris is Professor of English at McGill University. He is author of Spenser's Poetics of Prophecyand Allegory and Epic in English Renaissance Literature:Heroic Form in Sidney, Spenser, and Milton. He is coeditor of The Affectionate Shepherd: CelebratingRichard Barnfield. He is a recipient of the MacCaffrey Award and a Canada Research Fellowship.

• CONTENTS List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Notes on Editorial Practice and Using This Handbook General Introduction 1. Theology 2. Law 3. Medicine 4. Astrology 5. Physiognomy 6. Encyclopedia and Reference Works 7. Prodigious Monstrosities 8. Love and Friendship 9. The Sapphic Renaissance 10. Erotica Copyright Acknowledgments Index of Anthologized Authors and Headings

"Borris has assembled a selection of primary texts that is absolutely unequaled by any other anthology. Instead of simply reflecting the current state of scholarship on homosexuality-what one expects in anthologies like this one-Borris pursues an original and timely argument that should make his book command attention in its own right, quite apart from the texts he has gathered. There is nothing like the panoply of texts from so many different fields of discourse that Borris has assembled in Same-Sex Desire. A signal excellence of Borris's collection is the way it maintains a central focus on English texts and yet ranges widely among texts originally produced in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. That range should make the volume useful to professors of literature and cultural studies in disciplines other than English." -- Bruce R. Smith, University of Southern California