ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how work in the field of posthumanism can help early modern literature scholars to notice and better understand some startlingly posthumanist moves in the criticism and practice of poetry in late sixteenth-century England, particularly in the work of Spenser and Sidney. It presents a collection of thematically linked and developed close readings of Elizabethan poetry and criticism. The book examines how Sidney uses equine and equestrian discourse to theorize the relations between poets and their readers. It explores how liturgical movement, which combines architecture and community with individual experience, provides a technology for thinking about human movement for an array of Renaissance fiction writers. The book provides a commentary on the various figures in the House of Busirane, understanding their patterned representation as a tool for exploring epistemological and ethical modes of being.
