Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry

George Klawitter

Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry examines the important Interregnum/Restoration poet Andrew Marvell against a background of his contemporary lyric poets. His major works from the early elegies to the later political pieces are discussed with a view to unmasking the poet’s own sexuality and his reflection of prevailing sexual attitudes. Popular poems like the Mower poems and “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn” are explicated in depth as well as lesser known poems like “The Unfortunate Lover” and “The Gallery.” Marvell, often described as a “chameleon” has teased readers for hundreds of years. This new book will help both new readers as well as established Marvellians to understand cryptic sexual meanings and references in the verses. Poems are explicated against current heteronormative theory as well as recent work on homoeroticism, autoeroticism, and celibacy. George Klawitter has devoted much of his recent scholarly life to a study of Marvell’s lyric pieces and brings to this new book fresh insights into the suggestive intent of the poet’s works.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6¼ x 10

978-1-68393-103-4 • Hardback • September 2017 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-68393-104-1 • eBook • September 2017 • $116.50 • (£90.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / LGBT, Literary Criticism / Poetry, Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry examines the important Interregnum/Restoration poet Andrew Marvell against a background of his contemporary lyric poets. His major works from the early elegies to the later political pieces are discussed with a view to unmasking the poet’s own sexuality and his reflection of prevailing sexual attitudes. Popular poems like the Mower poems and “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn” are explicated in depth as well as lesser known poems like “The Unfortunate Lover” and “The Gallery.” Marvell, often described as a “chameleon” has teased readers for hundreds of years. This new book will help both new readers as well as established Marvellians to understand cryptic sexual meanings and references in the verses. Poems are explicated against current heteronormative theory as well as recent work on homoeroticism, autoeroticism, and celibacy. George Klawitter has devoted much of his recent scholarly life to a study of Marvell’s lyric pieces and brings to this new book fresh insights into the suggestive intent of the poet’s works.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6¼ x 10

978-1-68393-103-4 • Hardback • September 2017 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-68393-104-1 • eBook • September 2017 • $116.50 • (£90.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / LGBT, Literary Criticism / Poetry, Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

Author

George Klawitter, formerly professor of English and department chair of English Literature at St. Edward’s University (Austin, Texas), is presently adjunct professor of English at Holy Cross College (Notre Dame, Indiana).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: The Heterosexual Paradigm
Chapter Two: The Indeterminacy of Gender
Chapter Three: The Homoerotic Marvell
Chapter Four: Andrew Marvell and Autoeroticism
Chapter Five: The Celibate Marvell
Chapter Six: The Devotional Marvell
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

The book’s strengths lie in the author’s wealth of knowledge about seventeenth-century poetry, extending from classroom favorites, like Rochester and Herrick, to writers who appear less frequently on syllabi, such as Crashaw, Cowley, and Campion. . . Since the aims and accomplishments of this volume are primarily literary, it will appeal to Marvellians and scholars of the history of poetry, as well as to graduate students and advanced undergraduates researching these subjects.
— Renaissance Quarterly

The author has done a superb job of looking at what has been said on the subject of Renaissance sexuality—a very complex topic—and has added a broad yet detailed exposition of poetry of the era. Klawitter has done everyone a favor by taking a nuanced approach to a colorful subject and giving the reader an opportunity to consider the full range of plausible views of a given situation.
— The Gay & Lesbian Review

Klawitter’s work represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of early modern sexuality in general and Marvell’s sexual proclivities in particular. Those who wish to apprehend the suggestive vagaries of Marvellian sexuality would do well to read this book. . . . Klawitter’s work is, ultimately, an apt guide in determining what can be said about early modern sexuality on the basis of its literary sources. To that end, Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry represents the most comprehensive account of the sexual complexities, connotations, and contradictions of Andrew Marvell’s verse.
— Marvell Studies

Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry

George Klawitter

Andrew Marvell, Sexual Orientation, and Seventeenth-Century Poetry

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