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This course juxtaposes the Puritan and the pornographic, the sacred and the profane, the orthodox and the subversive to complicate these seeming binaries and recover a fuller view of Renaissance England's queer and feminist potentialities. Female knights on epic quests; boys acting women's parts on stage; martyrs (or heretics) burning at the stake; a country ripped apart by civil war; a king beheaded. Using queer and feminist theory, we'll examine England's complex and conflicting literary culture at a time of trauma and transition, 1509-1685. Major authors include: More, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Donne, Locke, Philips, Nashe, Herbert, Rochester, & Behn.