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Author: David M. Bergeron
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587292726
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
What can we know of the private lives of early British sovereigns? Through the unusually large number of letters that survive from King James VI of Scotland/James I of England (1566-1625), we can know a great deal. Using original letters, primarily from the British Library and the National Library of Scotland, David Bergeron creatively argues that James' correspondence with certain men in his court constitutes a gospel of homoerotic desire. Bergeron grounds his provocative study on an examination of the tradition of letter writing during the Renaissance and draws a connection between homosexual desire and letter writing during that historical period. King James, commissioner of the Bible translation that bears his name, corresponded with three principal male favorites—Esmé Stuart (Lennox), Robert Carr (Somerset), and George Villiers (Buckingham). Esmé Stuart, James' older French cousin, arrived in Scotland in 1579 and became an intimate adviser and friend to the adolescent king. Though Esmé was eventually forced into exile by Scottish nobles, his letters to James survive, as does James' hauntingly allegorical poem Phoenix. The king's close relationship with Carr began in 1607. James' letters to Carr reveal remarkable outbursts of sexual frustration and passion. A large collection of letters exchanged between James and Buckingham in the 1620s provides the clearest evidence for James' homoerotic desires. During a protracted separation in 1623, letters between the two raced back and forth. These artful, self-conscious letters explore themes of absence, the pleasure of letters, and a preoccupation with the body. Familial and sexual terms become wonderfully intertwined, as when James greets Buckingham as "my sweet child and wife." King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire presents a modern-spelling edition of seventy-five letters exchanged between Buckingham and James. Across the centuries, commentators have condemned the letters as indecent or repulsive. Bergeron argues that on the contrary they reveal an inward desire of king and subject in a mutual exchange of love.
Author: David M. Bergeron
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587292726
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Get Book Here
Book Description
What can we know of the private lives of early British sovereigns? Through the unusually large number of letters that survive from King James VI of Scotland/James I of England (1566-1625), we can know a great deal. Using original letters, primarily from the British Library and the National Library of Scotland, David Bergeron creatively argues that James' correspondence with certain men in his court constitutes a gospel of homoerotic desire. Bergeron grounds his provocative study on an examination of the tradition of letter writing during the Renaissance and draws a connection between homosexual desire and letter writing during that historical period. King James, commissioner of the Bible translation that bears his name, corresponded with three principal male favorites—Esmé Stuart (Lennox), Robert Carr (Somerset), and George Villiers (Buckingham). Esmé Stuart, James' older French cousin, arrived in Scotland in 1579 and became an intimate adviser and friend to the adolescent king. Though Esmé was eventually forced into exile by Scottish nobles, his letters to James survive, as does James' hauntingly allegorical poem Phoenix. The king's close relationship with Carr began in 1607. James' letters to Carr reveal remarkable outbursts of sexual frustration and passion. A large collection of letters exchanged between James and Buckingham in the 1620s provides the clearest evidence for James' homoerotic desires. During a protracted separation in 1623, letters between the two raced back and forth. These artful, self-conscious letters explore themes of absence, the pleasure of letters, and a preoccupation with the body. Familial and sexual terms become wonderfully intertwined, as when James greets Buckingham as "my sweet child and wife." King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire presents a modern-spelling edition of seventy-five letters exchanged between Buckingham and James. Across the centuries, commentators have condemned the letters as indecent or repulsive. Bergeron argues that on the contrary they reveal an inward desire of king and subject in a mutual exchange of love.
Author: Claude J Summers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317972252
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
This new book significantly contributes to an increased understanding of the gay and lesbian experience as it illuminates important works of literature and clarifies the status of same-sex desire in English literature from 1500--1760. Homosexual themes can be found throughout the literature of the English Renaissance and Enlightenment, but only rarely are they direct and unambiguous. The essays here are engaged in a vital and necessary process of re-historicizing and re-contextualizing literature. Utilizing a variety of critical methods and proceeding from several different theoretical and ideological presuppositions, these essays raise important questions about the methodology of gay studies, about the conception of same-sex desire, about the depiction of homoerotics, and about the relationship of sexuality and textuality, even as they shed new light on the homosexual import of a number of significant works of literature. Among the authors studied are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Lady Mary Wroth, Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn, John Cleland, and Thomas Gray. The collection attests both the current intellectual ferment in gay studies and the richness of English Renaissance and eighteenth-century literary representations of homosexuality. Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment England provides numerous insights into important works of literature and into significant theoretical issues implicit in the process of discerning and defining homosexuality in texts of earlier ages. All the contributors locate their texts in carefully delineated cultural and historical milieux. But they are not unduly constrained by either the tyranny of theory or the anxieties of anachronism. Rather than proceeding from hidebound or fashionably current ideologies, they sift the texts they study for the concrete evidence from which theories of sexuality might be constructed or modified. Hence, the collection will be valuable both for its practical criticism and for its theoretical contributions. It vividly illustrates the variety of gay studies in literature, especially as applied to works of earlier ages.
Author: Wesley Hill
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458723941
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
Yet many who sit next to us in the pew at church fit that description, says author Wesley Hill. As a celibate gay Christian, Hill gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to wrestle firsthand with God's ''No'' to same-sex relationships. What does it mean for gay Christians to live faithful to God while struggling with the challenge of their homosexuality? What is God's will for believers who experience same-sex desires? Those who choose celibacy are often left to deal with loneliness and the hunger for relationships. How can gay Christians experience God's favor and blessing in the midst of a struggle that for many brings a crippling sense of shame and guilt? Weaving together reflections from his own life and the lives of other Christians, such as Henri Nouwen and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hill offers a fresh perspective on these questions. He advocates neither unqualified ''healing'' for those who struggle, nor their accommodation to temptation, but rather faithfulness in the midst of brokenness. ''I hope this book may encourage other homosexual Christians to take the risky step of opening up their lives to others in the body of Christ,'' Hill writes. ''In so doing, they may find, as I have, by grace, that being known is spiritually healthier than remaining behind closed doors, that the light is better than the darkness.
Author: Michael Young
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781781555439
Category : Gay kings and rulers
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
James VI & I, the namesake of the King James Version of the Bible, had a series of notorious male favorites. No one denies that these relationships were amorous, but were they sexual? Michael B. Young merges political history with recent scholarship in the history of sexuality to answer that question. More broadly, he shows that James s favorites had a negative impact within the royal family, at court, in Parliament, and in the nation at large. Contemporaries raised the specter of a sodomitical court and an effeminized nation; some urged James to engage in a more virile foreign policy by embarking on war. Queen Anne encouraged a martial spirit and molded her oldest son to be more manly than his father. Repercussions continued after James s death, detracting from the majesty of the monarchy and contributing to the outbreak of the Civil War. Persons acquainted with the history of sexuality will find surprising premonitions here of modern homosexuality and homophobia. General readers will find a world of political intrigue colored by sodomy, pederasty, and gender instability. For readers new to the subject, the book begins with a helpful overview of King James s life."
Author: Mario DiGangi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521587013
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
DiGangi analyses the relation between homoeroticism and social power in a range of literary and historical texts from the 1580s to the 1620s, drawing on insights from materialist, queer and feminist theory to show the centrality of homoerotic practices.
Author: Alan Stewart
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448104572
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 458
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Book Description
As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her 'bloody nest', James had the most precarious of childhoods. Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumoured that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed lover, David Riccio. By the time James was one year old, Henry was murdered, possibly with the connivance of Mary; Mary was in exile in England; and James was King of Scotland. By the age of five, he had experienced three different regents as the ancient dynasties of Scotland battled for power and made him a virtual prisoner in Stirling Castle. In fact, James did not set foot outside the confines of Stirling until he was eleven, when he took control of his country. But even with power in his hands, he would never feel safe. For the rest of his life, he would be caught up in bitter struggles between the warring political and religious factions who sought control over his mind and body. Yet James believed passionately in the divine right of kings, as many of his writings testify. He became a seasoned political operator, carefully avoiding controversy, even when his mother Mary was sent to the executioner by Elizabeth I. His caution and politicking won him the English throne on Elizabeth's death in 1603 and he rapidly set about trying to achieve his most ardent ambition: the Union of the two kingdoms. Alan Stewart's impeccably researched new biography makes brilliant use of original sources to bring to life the conversations and the controversies of the Jacobean age. From James's 'inadvised' relationships with a series of favourites and Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to his conflicts with a Parliament which refused to fit its legislation to the Monarch's will, Stewart lucidly untangles the intricacies of James's life. In doing so, he uncovers the extent to which Charles I's downfall was caused by the cracks that appeared in the monarchy during his father's reign.
Author: Louis Crompton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674030060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 652
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Book Description
How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World. Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of sodomites in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.
Author: Sarah J. Robinson
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 0593193539
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
Author: David M. Bergeron
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351148028
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 359
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Book Description
Through an investigation of the dedications and addresses from various printed plays of the English Renaissance, the author recuperates the richness of these prefaces and connects them to the practice of patronage. The prefatory matter discussed ranges from the printer John Day's address to readers (the first of its kind) in the 1570 edition of Gorboduc to Richard Brome's dedication to William Seymour and address to readers in his 1640 play, Antipodes. The study includes discussion of prefaces in plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries as well as Shakespeare himself, among them Marston, Jonson, and Heywood. The author uses these prefaces to show that English playwrights, printers and publishers looked in two directions, toward aristocrats and toward a reading public, in order to secure status for and dissemination of dramatic texts. The author points out that dedications and addresses to readers constitute obvious signs that printers, publishers and playwrights in the period increasingly saw these dramatic texts as occupying a rightful place in the humanistic and commercial endeavor of book production.
Author: Nancy S. Struever
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226777429
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
There is a tendency in modern scholarship to describe the Renaissance Humanists merely as readers—as interpreters happily absorbed within the bounds of their chosen classical texts. In Theory as Practice, Nancy Struever contests this accepted notion; by focusing on ethical inquiry, she presents the Humanists as engaged in subtle, innovative moral work. Struever argues that the accomplishment of five major Renaissance figures—Petrarch, Nicolaus Cusanus, Lorenzo Valla, Machiavelli, and Montaigne—was to consider theory as practice and thus engage the ethics of inquiry. She notes three stages of investigation, the first represented by Petrarch, who "relocated" ethical inquiry from a theoretical realm to a familiar practice responsive to daily experience. Next, Struever describes how Cusanus and Valla assume Petrarch's relocation, yet confect ethics into discursive disciplines. Finally, while both Machiavelli and Montaigne produced strong revisions of discipline, they considered the problems of addressing the non-inquirer as well. Struever urges modern readers to employ both rhetorical and philosophical analysis to reveal these Humanists' aggressive tactics of presentation as well as their novel disciplinary reorientation. By doing so, she suggests, we discover how Renaissance ethical inquiry illuminates, and is illuminated by, the modern ethical theory of such philosophers as Peirce, Wittgenstein, Bernard Williams, and Quine.
