Desire in the Renaissance: Psychoanalysis and Literature

Commendation Quotes: The new historicism, which in recent years has become the predominate mode of reading the Renaissance, rarely manages to account for the 'literariness' of literary texts. I see [this book] as redressing the new historicism's sin of omission. Review Quotes: "Desire in the Renaissance" is impressive in its range, and shows how comprehensive the use of psychoanalytic theory in literary criticism has become. At their best, the essays demonstrate the power of psychoanalysis to elucidate the convoluted workings of literary language, and argue for its peculiar compatibility with the dizzying gamesmanship of early modern texts.--Katy Emck "Times Literary Supplement "Review Quotes:"Desire in the Renaissance" is impressive in its range, and shows howcomprehensive the use of psychoanalytic theory in literary criticism hasbecome. At their best, the essays demonstrate the power of psychoanalysis toelucidate the convoluted workings of literary language, and argue for itspeculiar compatibility with the dizzying gamesmanship of early moderntexts.--Katy Emck "Times Literary Supplement "Table of Contents: Introduction: Worlds Within and Without3The Insincerity of Women19Mistaken Identities: Castiglio(ne)'s Practical Joke39The Female Masquerade: Ariosto and the Game of Desire61Actaeon at the Hinder Gate: The Stag Party in Spenser's Gardens of Adonis91Embodied Voices: Petrarch Reading (Himself Reading) Ovid120Through the Optic Glass: Voyeurism and Paradise Lost146Libidinal Economies: Machiavelli and Fortune's Rape169Female Friends and Fraternal Enemies in As You Like It184From Virgil to Tasso: The Epic Topos as an Uncanny Return207Writing the Specular Son: Jonson, Freud, Lacan, and the (K)not of Masculinity233List of Contributors261Index263Review Quotes: ""Desire in the Renaissance" is impressive in its range, and shows how comprehensive the use of psychoanalytic theory in literary criticism has become. At their best, the essays demonstrate the power of psychoanalysis to elucidate the convoluted workings of literary language, and argue for its peculiar compatibility with the dizzying gamesmanship of early modern texts."--Katy Emck, "Times Literary Supplement" Publisher Marketing: Drawing on a variety of psychoanalytic approaches, ten critics engage in exciting discussions of the ways the "inner life" is depicted in the Renaissance and the ways it is shown to interact with the "external" social and economic spheres. Spurred by the rise of capitalism and the nuclear family, Renaissance anxieties over changes in identity emerged in the period's unconscious--or, as Freud would have it, in its literature. Hence, much of Renaissance literature represents themes that have been prominent in the discourse of psychoanalysis: mistaken identity, incest, voyeurism, mourning, and the uncanny. The essays in this volume range from Spenser and Milton to Machiavelli and Ariosto, and focus on the fluidity of gender, the economics of sexual and sibling rivalry, the power of the visual, and the cultural echoes of the uncanny. The discussion of each topic highlights language as the medium of desire, transgression, or oppression. The section "Faking It: Sex, Class, and Gender Mobility" contains essays by Marjorie Garber (Middleton), Natasha Korda (Castiglione), and Valeria Finucci (Ariosto). The contributors to "Ogling: The Circulation of Power" include Harry Berger (Spenser), Lynn Enterline (Petrarch), and Regina Schwartz (Milton). "Loving and Loathing: The Economics of Subjection" includes Juliana Schiesari (Machia- velli) and William Kerrigan (Shakespeare). "Dreaming On: Uncanny Encounters" contains essays by Elizabeth J. Bellamy (Tasso) and David Lee Miller (Jonson). Publisher Marketing: Drawing on a variety of psychoanalytic approaches, ten critics engage in exciting discussions of the ways the "inner life" is depicted in the Renaissance and the ways it is shown to interact with the "external" social and economic spheres. Spurred by the rise of capitalism and the nuclear family, Renaissance anxieties over changes in identity emerged in the period's unconscious--or, as Freud would have it, in its literature. Hence, much of Renaissance literature represents themes that have been prominent in the discourse of psychoanalysis: mistaken identity, incest, voyeurism, mourning, and the uncanny. The essays in this volume range from Spenser and Milton to Machiavelli and Ariosto, and focus on the fluidity of gender, the economics of sexual and sibling rivalry, the power of the visual, and the cultural echoes of the uncanny. The discussion of each topic highlights language as the medium of desire, transgression, or oppression. The section "Faking It: Sex, Class, and Gender Mobility" contains essays by Marjorie Garber (Middleton), Natasha Korda (Castiglione), and Valeria Finucci (Ariosto). The contributors to "Ogling: The Circulation of Power" include Harry Berger (Spenser), Lynn Enterline (Petrarch), and Regina Schwartz (Milton). "Loving and Loathing: The Economics of Subjection" includes Juliana Schiesari (Machia-velli) and William Kerrigan (Shakespeare). "Dreaming On: Uncanny Encounters" contains essays by Elizabeth J. Bellamy (Tasso) and David Lee Miller (Jonson).

Contributor Bio:  Finucci, Valeria Valeria Finucci is Professor of Italian and Theater Studies and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Duke University. Contributor Bio:  Schwartz, Regina M Regina Mara Schwartz is Professor of English at Northwestern University, where she teaches literature, religion, and law. She is the author of "Remembering and Repeating: On Milton's Theology and Poetics" (1988), winner of the James Holly Hanford Book Award, and "The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism" (1997), which was nominated for a Pulitzer.