Enclosure acts : sexuality, property, and culture in early modern England /

This set of papers from a 1990 conference explores (in the editors' words) "the enclosure and consolidation of land, which constituted an important stage in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and ... the redefinition and enclosure of sexuality and the body, within the symbolic order which accompanied that process." The approach throughout places stress on the material context of culture; so the Shakespearean play receiving most prominent discussion is 2 Henry VI, with its agrarian rebel Jack Cade. Some of the pieces prove less than inviting, for example, the labored study of "the metaphysics of Elizabethan and Jacobean plumbing." But the wide range (Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Marvell), prevailing intelligence, and rich documentation from period sources make the collection a strong introduction to current modes of new historicist inquiry for graduate students. Especially fruitful are papers on Shakespeare and obstetrical practice and a pair of fascinatingly divergent readings of Marvell's "Upon Appleton House." Richly annotated. Recommended for college and university libraries. E. D. Hill; Mount Holyoke College