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Identifying the stage as a primary site for erotic display, these essays take eroticism in Renaissance culture as a paradigm for issues of sexuality and identity in early modern culture. Contributors examine how the Renaissance stage functioned as a decoder for erotic experience, both reinforcing and subverting expected sexual behaviour. They argue that the dynamics of theatrical eroticism served to deconstruct gender definitions, leaving conventional categories of sexuality blurred, confused - or absent. In seeking to reposition the conventions and subversions of gender and desire in terms of one another, these essays open up an attractive and distinctive perspective in cultural debate.