Closeted Writing and Lesbian and Gay Literature

Arguing for renewed attention to covert same-sex-oriented writing (and to authorial intention more generally), this study explores the representation of female and male homosexuality in late sixteenth- through mid-eighteenth-century British and French literature. The author also uncovers and analyzes long-term continuities in the representation of same-sex love, sex, and desire. Covering multiple genres (poems, plays, novels) and modes (such as satire, scandal, and pornography), this study engages with the historiography of sexuality as a whole.