
Against Reproduction
Where Renaissance Texts Come from
Stephen Guy-Bray(Author)
University of Toronto Press
Published on 27. February 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-4875-5424-8 (ISBN)
Description
The idea of the author as parent and the text as child is a pervasive metaphor throughout Renaissance poetry and drama. In Against Reproduction, Stephen Guy-Bray sets out to systematically interrogate this common trope, and to consider the limits of using heterosexual reproduction to think of textual creation.
Through an analysis of Renaissance texts by poets and playwrights including William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and John Milton, Guy-Bray argues that the reproductive metaphor was only one of the ways in which writers presented their own literary production. Their uses of sexual language reveal that these authors were surprisingly ambivalent about their own writing. Guy-Bray suggests that they often presented their work in such a way as to feminize themselves and to associate the writing process with shame and abjection.
Offering fresh perspectives on well-known texts, Against Reproduction is an accessible and compelling book that will affect the study of both Renaissance literature and queer theory.
Through an analysis of Renaissance texts by poets and playwrights including William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and John Milton, Guy-Bray argues that the reproductive metaphor was only one of the ways in which writers presented their own literary production. Their uses of sexual language reveal that these authors were surprisingly ambivalent about their own writing. Guy-Bray suggests that they often presented their work in such a way as to feminize themselves and to associate the writing process with shame and abjection.
Offering fresh perspectives on well-known texts, Against Reproduction is an accessible and compelling book that will affect the study of both Renaissance literature and queer theory.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
354 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4875-5424-8 (9781487554248)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Stephen Guy-Bray is a professor in the Department of English at the University of British Columbia.