Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Kingsley-Smith demonstrates how Cupid played a crucial role in the struggle to categorise and control desire in early modern England.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Cupid, art and idolatry; 2. Cupid, death and tragedy; 3. Cupid, chastity and rebellious women; 4. Cupid and the boy: the pleasure and pain of boy-love; 5. 'Cupid and Psyche': the return of the sacred?

About the author

Jane Kingsley-Smith is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Roehampton University and is a regular guest lecturer at Shakespeare's Globe. She is the author of Shakespeare's Drama of Exile (2003) and has also published on a range of topics including representations of Shakespeare in popular cinema, Elizabethan love tragedy and John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.

Summary

Cupid became a popular figure in sixteenth-century England, appearing in drama, paintings and lyric poetry. This book argues that Cupid's rise to cultural prominence was a response to the Protestant Reformation, and the debates it provoked about the 'Catholic' sins of lust and idolatry and the legitimacy of female rule.

Product details

• Authors: Jane Kingsley-Smith, Jane (Roehampton University Kingsley-Smith, Jane Dr Kingsley-Smith, Kingsley-Smith Jane
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.09.2013
• EAN: 9781107654822
• ISBN: 978-1-107-65482-2
• No. of pages: 276
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; The arts: general issues, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, ART / History / General, Literature & literary studies, History of Art, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, 15th century, c 1400 to c 1499, Literary studies: general, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599