First published in 1983, this book focuses on the twentieth-century writer as both a product, and an interpreter, of his or her society. It explores the social basis of our conceptions of literature and the ways in which writing is affected by the media, institutional and technical, through which it reaches readers. The text looks at experiences of the period in terms of domestic and world affairs, sexuality, and philosophical and religious attitudes. It discusses the social and economic structures which specifically affect the act of writing, and considers the dominant developments of the period in three genres: novels, poetry and writing for theatre.

The new wave of cultural materialists in Britain and new historicists in the United States here join forces to depose the sacred icon of the "eternal bard" and argue for a Shakespeare who meditates and exploits political, cultural and ideological forces. Ten years on, this second edition presents additional essays by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. -- .

The hardline, uncompromising theology preached by the English Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries had disturbing effects on the literature of the period. This study, originally published in 1983, assesses the importance of the prevailing religious climate to the work of several major writers, both in and out of sympathy with the contemporary protestantism. It is argued that the accepted view of the period as essentially 'Christian-Humanist' obscures the harsher aspects of a Calvinism which throws into relief the agonies of a writer like Donne, the acceptances of one like George Herbert.

Many writers rejected more or less explicitly the Christian dogma, through the heroic assertion of human potential in Shakespearean and other dramatic characters, the nihilism of Marlowe, or the secular rationalism of Bacon and Hobbes. Milton is central to this complex weft of belief and rejection, piety and atheism, acceptance of predestination and determination to accept fate, that characterises the period.

Finally, Sinfield shows how this protestantism disintegrated under the strain of internal contradictions and external pressures, and in the process helped to stimulate secularism. In this original and clearly written book, scholarship is deployed unobstrusively to place many major works in an unaccustomed and stimulating perspective.

Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reassessment of cultural materialism as a way of understanding textuality, history and culture, by one of the founding figures of this critical movement. Alan Sinfield examines cultural materialism both as a body of ongoing argument and as it informs particular works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, especially in relation to sexuality in early-modern England and queer theory. The book has several interlocking preoccupations: theories of textuality and reading the political location of Shakespearean plays and the organisation of literary culture today the operation of state power in the early-modern period and the scope for dissidence the sex/gender system in that period and the application of queer theory in history. These preoccupations are explored in and around a range of works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Throughout the book Sinfield re-presents cultural materialism, framing it not as a set of propositions, as has often been done, but as a cluster of unresolved problems. His brilliant, lucid and committed readings demonstrate that the 'unfinished business' of cultural materialism - and Sinfield's work in particular - will long continue to produce new questions and challenges for the fields of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies.

"Cultural Politics - Queer Reading" is a bold and enduring challenge to the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature. It offers a widely influential investigation of the principles and practice that may inform dissident reading and a compelling argument for intellectual allegiances beyond the academy.
Since its initial publication in 1994, the lively, accessible polemic of "Cultural Politics - Queer Reading" has stimulated debates on the future of critical theory and the role of gender, ethnic and cultural studies within academic literary studies. Alan Sinfield engages - freely, provocatively and wittily - with topics such as the gendering of literary culture, the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War and the history of cultural materialism, and discusses figures such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde, Thom Gunn and JeanetteWinterson. In an illuminating new introduction written especially for this edition, Sinfield revisits the book's agenda for a new form of cultural critique and a truly political lesbian and gay studies. He situates the volume in its original contexts, assesses the fate of queer theory and renews his call for an "Englit" that confidently incorporates ongoing study of the cultures of ethnicity, gender and sexuality.

The second half of the twentieth century was a period which saw huge political, social, technological and economic changes. These upheavals are mediated in often controversial innovations in literature, art and cinema.
From Angus Wilson to Pat Barker and Salman Rushdie, British Culture of the Post-War is an ideal starting point for those studying cultural developments in Britain of revent years. Chapters on individual people and art forms give a clear and concise overview of the progression of different genres. They also discuss the wider issues of Britain's relationships with America and Europe, and the idea of Britishness.
Each section is introduced with a short discussion of the major historical events of the period. Read as a whole, British Culture of the Postwar will give students a comprehensive introduction to this turbulent and exciting period, and a greater understanding of the cultural production arising from it.

The second half of the twentieth century was a period which saw unprecedented social, technological and economic changes. These upheavals are reflected in the development of literature, music and cinema in the post-war period.
From Kingsley Amis to Salman Rushdie, "British Culture of the Postwar" is an ideal starting point for those studying cultural developments in Britain during this period. Chapters on individual people and art forms give a clear and concise overview of the progression of different genres. They also discuss the wider issues of Britain's relationships with America and Europe, and the idea of Englishness.
Each section is introduced with a short discussion of the major historical events of the period. Read as a whole "British Culture of the Postwar" will give students a comprehensive introduction to this turbulent and exciting period, and a greater understanding of the cultural production arising from it.

Luxurious Sexualities contains some of the most path- breaking adventurous critical writing currently to be found in Britain. Focusing on eighteenth century sexuality it is intriguing, controversial and provoking.
Textual Practice contains articles relating to women, popular culture, visual media, and ethnic and sexual minorities.

Volume 10, Issue 3- Papers include: Tragedy and the nationalist condition of criticism "Thomas Doucherty"--Descartes, Baudrillard, Dryden and a consideration of cultural relations between England and France in the late seventeenth century.ILaodamia and the moaning of Mary "John" "Barrell"--changing critical responses to Wordsworth's "heroic version of masculinity." Melodrama as Avant-garde: enacting a new subjectivity "Simon Shepherd"--nineteenth-century English radicals and translations of French melodrama. The diasporic imaginary: theorizing the Indian diaspora "Vijay Mishra;" Bisexuality, heterosexuality and wishful theory "Jonathan Dollimore. Reviews, index. Holcroft ""IA Tale of Mystery, --a melo-drame" and ICaleb Williams.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Since its launch in 1987 "Textual Practice" has established itself as a leading journal of radical literary theory. New approaches to literary texts are naturally a major feature, but in exploring apparently discrete areas such as philosophy, history, law, science, architecture, gender and media studies, this work pays no heed to traditional academic boundaries.

Since its launch in 1987 TP has been Britain's principal international journal of radical literary studies, continually pressing theory into new engagments.

Papers include: Tragedy and the nationalist condition of criticism "Thomas Doucherty"--Descartes, Baudrillard, Dryden and a consideration of cultural relations between England and France in the late seventeenth century.ILaodamia and the moaning of Mary "John" "Barrell"--changing critical responses to Wordsworth's "heroic version of masculinity." Melodrama as Avant-garde: enacting a new subjectivity "Simon Shepherd"--nineteenth-century English radicals and translations of French melodrama. The diasporic imaginary: theorizing the Indian diaspora "Vijay Mishra;" Bisexuality, heterosexuality and wishful theory "Jonathan Dollimore. Reviews, index. Holcroft IA Tale of Mystery, --a melo-drame" and ICaleb Williams

Luxurious Sexualities contains some of the most path- breaking adventurous critical writing currently to be found in Britain. Focusing on eighteenth century sexuality it is intriguing, controversial and provoking. Textual Practice contains articles relating to women, popular culture, visual media, and ethnic and sexual minorities.

The hardline, uncompromising theology preached by the English Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries had disturbing effects on the literature of the period. This study, originally published in 1983, assesses the importance of the prevailing religious climate to the work of several major writers, both in and out of sympathy with the contemporary protestantism. It is argued that the accepted view of the period as essentially 'Christian-Humanist' obscures the harsher aspects of a Calvinism which throws into relief the agonies of a writer like Donne, the acceptances of one like George Herbert.

Many writers rejected more or less explicitly the Christian dogma, through the heroic assertion of human potential in Shakespearean and other dramatic characters, the nihilism of Marlowe, or the secular rationalism of Bacon and Hobbes. Milton is central to this complex weft of belief and rejection, piety and atheism, acceptance of predestination and determination to accept fate, that characterises the period.

Finally, Sinfield shows how this protestantism disintegrated under the strain of internal contradictions and external pressures, and in the process helped to stimulate secularism. In this original and clearly written book, scholarship is deployed unobstrusively to place many major works in an unaccustomed and stimulating perspective.

Canadians have enjoyed a long history of encounters with Shakespeare, from the visual arts to creative new adaptations, from traditional and nontraditional interpretations to distinguished critical scholarship. We have in over two centuries remade Shakespeare in ways that are distinctly Canadian. The Oxford Shakespeare Made in Canada series offers a unique vantage on these histories of production and encounter with attention to accessibility and presentation. These editions explore how a given country can inform the interpretation and pedagogy associated with individual plays. Canadians, or more properly British North Americans from both Upper and Lower Canada, have been interacting with Shakespeare since no less than the 1760s in a tradition that is at once rich and robust, indigenous and international. The Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare project at the University of Guelph has created a multimedia database of hundreds of adaptations, developed from Guelph's world-class theatre archives and a host of independent sources that reflect on a long tradition - from pre-Confederation times and heading vibrantly into the future - of playing Shakespeare in Canada.These are the first editions of the plays of William Shakespeare to place key insights from the world's best scholarship alongside the specific contexts associated with a dynamic Canadian tradition of productions and adaptations. Specially research images, never printed before, from a range of Canadian productions of Shakespeare will be featured in every play In additional to a scholarly edition of the playtext complete with original new annotation, these books will include both short introductions by noted scholars and prefaces by well-known Canadians who have experience with Shakespeare. In addition, each play will include act and scene summaries, dramatis personal, and recommended reading/resources.

Was Shakespeare gay? Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic? How does mainstream reading differ from that of subcultural groups? In this lively and readable book, Alan Sinfield challenges the assumptions of English literature and investigates the principles and practices that may inform lesbian and gay reading.

Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reassessment of cultural materialism as a way of understanding textuality, history and culture, by one of the founding figures of this critical movement. Alan Sinfield examines cultural materialism both as a body of ongoing argument and as it informs particular works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, especially in relation to sexuality in early-modern England and queer theory. The book has several interlocking preoccupations: theories of textuality and reading the political location of Shakespearean plays and the organisation of literary culture today the operation of state power in the early-modern period and the scope for dissidence the sex/gender system in that period and the application of queer theory in history. These preoccupations are explored in and around a range of works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Throughout the book Sinfield re-presents cultural materialism, framing it not as a set of propositions, as has often been done, but as a cluster of unresolved problems. His brilliant, lucid and committed readings demonstrate that the 'unfinished business' of cultural materialism - and Sinfield's work in particular - will long continue to produce new questions and challenges for the fields of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies.

It is widely supposed that the most suitable partner will be someone very much like oneself; gay fiction and cinema are often organized around this assumption. Nonetheless, power differentials are remarkably persistent -- as well as sexy. What are the personal and political implications of this insight?

Sinfield argues that hierarchies in interpersonal relations are continuous with the main power differentials of our social and political life (gender, class, age, and race); therefore it is not surprising that they govern our psychic lives. Recent writing enables an exploration of their positive potential, especially in fantasy, as well as their danger.

"On Sexuality and Power" focuses on the writing of the last thirty years, revisiting also Whitman, Wilde, Mann, Forster, and Genet, and reassessing the very idea of a gay canon.

If we come to consciousness within a language that is complicit with the social order, how can we conceive, let alone organize, resistance? This key question in the politics of reading and subcultural practice informs Alan Sinfield's book on writing in early-modern England. New historicism has often shown people trapped in a web of language and culture; through discussions of writing by Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, and Marlow, Sinfield reassesses the scope of dissidence and control. The early-modern state, Christianity, and the cultural apparatus, despite an ideology of unity and explicit viloence, could not but allow space to challenging voices. Disruptions in concepts of hierarchy, nationality, gender and sexuality force their way into literary texts. Sinfield is often provocative. He examines "Julius Caesar" produces a different politics, and compares Sidney's idea of poetry to Leonid Brezhnev's, and reinstates the concept of character in the face of post-structuralist theory. He keeps the current politics of literary study always in view, especially in a substantial chapter on Shakespeare in the United States. Sinfield subjects interactions between class, ethnicity, sexuality an

The plays of John Webster are read and seen more widely today than at any time since they were written - provoking much disagreement in the process. The continuing debate about his political, religious and philosophical attitudes, his formal skills and the importance of his plays for understanding the changing culture in which they were written, make Webster the most controversial of all Jacobean dramatists. This volume includes freshly collated, fully annotated and cross-referenced texts of his three best-known plays, together with introductions and a useful critical bibliography.

It is widely supposed that the most suitable partner will be someone very much like oneself; gay fiction and cinema are often organized around this assumption. Nonetheless, power differentials are remarkably persistent -- as well as sexy. What are the personal and political implications of this insight?

Sinfield argues that hierarchies in interpersonal relations are continuous with the main power differentials of our social and political life (gender, class, age, and race); therefore it is not surprising that they govern our psychic lives. Recent writing enables an exploration of their positive potential, especially in fantasy, as well as their danger.

"On Sexuality and Power" focuses on the writing of the last thirty years, revisiting also Whitman, Wilde, Mann, Forster, and Genet, and reassessing the very idea of a gay canon.

"Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain" is a landmark work in contemporary literary and cultural analysis. It offers a provocative and brilliant account of political change since 1945, and how such change shaped the cultural output of our time. It also looks at how and when literature intersects with other cultural forms - including jazz and rock music, television, journalism, commercial and "mass" cultures - and the growth of American cultural dominance. This edition includes a new foreword by the author.

This intriguing and authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day. Alan Sinfield argues that, despite and because of censorship and discretion, twentieth-century theatre has been viewed as gay space. When we attune ourselves to the idioms of the different decades, theatre emerges as an important place for the circulation of images of homosexuality and for the exploration of concepts of gender and sexuality. Sinfield examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Rattigan, Williams, Le Roi Jones and Orton. He locates plays in the contexts in which they were produced and viewed, whether it be West End and Broadway or more bohemian little club theatres, Off-Broadway, and fringe. He discusses many women writers - from Djuna Barnes and Agatha Christie to Lorraine Hansberry and Caryl Churchill - and analyses the implications of homosexuality in their work.He explains why in the 1950s British and American plays began to differ in their representations of gays, how the 1960s produced an exuberant cultivation of 'kinky' humour and gay political activism in theatres, and what impact AIDS has had on theatrical productions. Sinfield concludes with provocative questions about the direction of new theatre writing, asserting that representations in theatre continue to challenge notions of our sexual potential. Alan Sinfield is professor of English literature at the University of Sussex. Among his many publications are 'Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain', 'Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading', 'The Wilde Century', and 'Cultural Politics - Queer Reading'.

"Cultural Politics - Queer Reading" is a bold and enduring challenge to the assumptions that have shaped the study of English literature. It offers a widely influential investigation of the principles and practice that may inform dissident reading and a compelling argument for intellectual allegiances beyond the academy.
Since its initial publication in 1994, the lively, accessible polemic of "Cultural Politics - Queer Reading" has stimulated debates on the future of critical theory and the role of gender, ethnic and cultural studies within academic literary studies. Alan Sinfield engages - freely, provocatively and wittily - with topics such as the gendering of literary culture, the sexual politics of psychoanalysis during the Cold War and the history of cultural materialism, and discusses figures such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde, Thom Gunn and JeanetteWinterson. In an illuminating new introduction written especially for this edition, Sinfield revisits the book's agenda for a new form of cultural critique and a truly political lesbian and gay studies. He situates the volume in its original contexts, assesses the fate of queer theory and renews his call for an "Englit" that confidently incorporates ongoing study of the cultures of ethnicity, gender and sexuality.