Download or read book Before Pornography written by Ian Frederick Moulton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Pornography explores the relationship between erotic writing, masculinity, and national identity in Renaissance England. Drawing on both manuscripts and printed texts, and incorporating insights from modern feminist theory and queer studies, the book argues that pornography is a historical phenomenon: while the representation of sexual activity exists in nearly all cultures, pornography does not. The book includes analyses of the social significance of eroticism in such canonical texts as Sidney's Defense of Poesy and Spenser's Faerie Queene.