Ian Frederick Moulton. Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early Modern England

The history of erotic representation in literature has received comparatively little attention so far. Michel Foucault in his History of Sexuality made no attempt to explore this field, but the hermeneutic instruments he provided have encouraged and helped many perceptive critics, like Moulton, to lay the foundations of such a study. Moulton explores a body of texts, written mostly in verse between 1550 and 1650, which circulated usually in manuscript form and were printed only centuries late...