James Grantham Turner – författare

This is an acclaimed study of the understanding of sex and gender in the early modern period, examining in particular Milton's interventions in these debates.Focusing on contemporary readings of the Eden-myth in Genesis, the book shows that the reconstruction of Paradisal marriage raised many problems of interpretation. How can the cryptic and contradictory elements of Genesis be reconciled? Was sexuality the `True Paradise' or the destroying serpent? Since Genesis pronounces knowledge and imagination `evil', how can the interpreter arrive at the truth? Is Paradise Lost forever, or can we `force through the Fire-sword' and regain the Edenic state? These questions, perennial sources of contradiction in the Christian tradition, come to a head in the turmoil of Milton's lifetime, and they were particularly urgent for the poet himself, caught up in the problems of a failed marriage but unwilling to give up his vision of Paradisal sexuality.James Grantham Turner's accomplished and incisive analysis of Milton's confrontation with his precursors and contemporaries established him as a monumental but divided figure - torn between radical and conservative mentalities, between eroticism and hatred of the flesh, and between patriarchal and egalitarian conceptions of Paradisal marriage.

How did Casanova learn the theory of sex? Why did male pornographers write in the characters of women? What happens when philosophers take sexuality seriously and the sex-writers present their outrageous fantasies as an educational, philosophical quest?Schooling Sex is the first full history of early modern libertine literature and its reception, from Aretino and Tullia d'Aragona in 16th century Italy to Pepys, Rochester, and Behn in late 17th century England. James Turner explores the idea of sexual education, from the simple instructional dialogue to the advanced experiments of the philosophical libertine, analysing the hard-core curiculum that defined sexuality centuries before the Marquis de Sade. He shows how close, nuanced readings of neglected but compelling texts - like the searingly explicit Alcibiade fanciullo, L'escole des filles, and Aloisia Sigea - link them to larger issues of gender politics, aesthetics, literary criticism, sexual history, medical science, mind-body philosophy, and the educational revolution.

A 'Deluge of Libertinism' swept through England in the turbulent seventeenth century: class and gender relations went into deep crisis, and sexually explicit literature took the blame. Bridging periods often kept apart, Libertines and Radicals analyses English sexual culture between the Civil Wars and the death of Charles II in great detail. James Grantham Turner examines a broad range of Civil War and Restoration texts, from sex-crime records to Milton's epics and Rochester's 'mannerly obscene' lyrics. Turner places special emphasis on women's writing and on pornographic texts like The Wandering Whore and The Parliament of Women, flavoured with cockney humour or 'Puritan' indignation. Throughout, Turner reads satirical texts, whether political or pornographic, as an attempt to neutralize women's efforts to establish their own institutions and their own voice. This exhaustive study will be of interest to cultural historians as well as literary scholars.

In this book some of the most eminent critics of seventeenth-century literature and some of the liveliest younger scholars explore the interconnections between Milton's politics, poetics and prose writings. While the essays focus on Milton's prose, they open up interesting perspectives on his major poems and on seventeenth-century ideologies, theologies and interpretative practices. Their aim is to bridge the gap between a history-of-ideas approach and literary/textual analysis, showing how key ideas - such as authority, divorce, martyrdom or iconoclasm - stimulate and trouble the imagination of a great writer. These essays challenge the notion of Milton's prose as an 'achievement of the left hand', and propose a complex relation between text and context, the aesthetic and the sociopolitical, issues of representation and the politics of gender.

In this book some of the most eminent critics of seventeenth-century literature and some of the liveliest younger scholars explore the interconnections between Milton's politics, poetics and prose writings. While the essays focus on Milton's prose, they open up interesting perspectives on his major poems and on seventeenth-century ideologies, theologies and interpretative practices. Their aim is to bridge the gap between a history-of-ideas approach and literary/textual analysis, showing how key ideas - such as authority, divorce, martyrdom or iconoclasm - stimulate and trouble the imagination of a great writer. These essays challenge the notion of Milton's prose as an 'achievement of the left hand', and propose a complex relation between text and context, the aesthetic and the sociopolitical, issues of representation and the politics of gender.

This exploration of sexuality and gender in Renaissance art and literature starts from an assumption that would have seemed unthinkable a generation ago: that the 'natural' phenomena of sex, gender and subjectivity are constructed rather than essentially biological or fixed. The essays rise to the challenge of producing a new post-Foucaultian history of gender and sexuality. All of them have been influenced by feminism, and several deal with women not just as objects of representation, but as subjects and authors in their own right. Among the historical issues examined are the production and suppression of women's voices, the relation between illicit sexuality and social order, the ambiguity of beauty, lesbian erotics, birth-imagery and the birthing ritual, the class status of women, the 'femininity' of masculine dress, and the sexual politics of courtesy.

A 'Deluge of Libertinism' swept through England in the turbulent seventeenth century: class and gender relations went into deep crisis, and sexually explicit literature took the blame. Bridging periods often kept apart, Libertines and Radicals analyses English sexual culture between the Civil Wars and the death of Charles II in great detail. James Grantham Turner examines a broad range of Civil War and Restoration texts, from sex-crime records to Milton's epics and Rochester's 'mannerly obscene' lyrics. Turner places special emphasis on women's writing and on pornographic texts like The Wandering Whore and The Parliament of Women, flavoured with cockney humour or 'Puritan' indignation. Throughout, Turner reads satirical texts, whether political or pornographic, as an attempt to neutralize women's efforts to establish their own institutions and their own voice. This exhaustive study will be of interest to cultural historians as well as literary scholars.