Love, Sex, Intimacy and Friendship Between Men, 1550-1800 [Paperback]

This book gathers the most recent scholarship on the historicization of masculinity by the most original and widely respected thinkers in the field. By using the analytical tools of Queer Theory these interdisciplinary scholars have reconfigured the history of sexuality in radically altering how we think about sexuality and how we write history.Introduction; K.O'Donnel , M.O'Rourke & D.M.Halperin Homoplatonic, Homodepressed, Homomorbid:' Some Further genealogies of Same-Sex Attraction in Western Civilization; G.Rousseau Homosexuals in History: A.L. Rowse and the Queer Archive; A.Stewart Male Love and Friendship in the Eighteenth Century; G.E.Haggerty A Traditional Rite for Blessing Friendship; A.Bray The Heterosexual Male in Eighteenth Century London and his Queer Interactions; R.Trumbach How Queer was the Renaissance? M.Di Gangi Can the Sodomite Speak? Sodomy, Satire, Desire, and the Castlehaven Case; N.F.Radel (Per)versions of Sappho; J.Greene

'This is a well-conceived and provocative collection that will be important not only to historians of sexuality but to social and cultural historians generally. The essays are focused, original and often surprising, and point toward significant new areas of study. The book is a moving and appropriate tribute to the work of the late Alan Bray.' - Professor Stephen Orgel, Department of English, Stanford University

'These substantial and accomplished essays focus on a precise but densely resonant period, unravelling the links between sexuality, friendship, manhood and subjectivity. A confident, stimulating and entirely readable collection by some of the top experts in the field, with implications for the whole idea of sexuality' - Professor Alan Sinfield, Sussex University

'An impressive and wide-ranging collection, whose contributors, including David Halperin, Alan Stewart, and Mario Di Gangi, are leaders in the field of early modern queer studies.' - Huntington Library Quarterlyl5