A wide-ranging account of the significance of sodomy in the rich discourse of early modern England from 1590 to 1660. The author sets for a challenging reinterpretation of the historicity of homosexuality, reading a variety of Renaissance texts in the light of the work of such contemporary theorists as Foucault, Kristeva, Deleuze, Guattari, Hocquenghem, Derrida, and Althusser.