Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality: Unfinished Business in Cultural Materialism

Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reassessment of cultural materialism as a way of understanding the intersections of textuality, history, culture and politics 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 Authority in Shakespearean Plays and in the organization of literary culture today 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 unresolvedproblems. 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 field of Renaissance Studies.

Alan Sinfield is Professor of English at the University of Sussex.