Drawing on various psychoanalytic approaches, ten critics explore how the "inner life" is portrayed in the Renaissance and its interaction with the "external" social and economic realms. The rise of capitalism and the nuclear family spurred Renaissance anxieties over identity, reflected in the period's literature. Much of this literature addresses themes prominent in psychoanalysis, such as mistaken identity, incest, voyeurism, mourning, and the uncanny. The essays cover a range of authors, from Spenser and Milton to Machiavelli and Ariosto, focusing on gender fluidity, the economics of rivalry, the power of the visual, and cultural echoes of the uncanny. Each discussion emphasizes language as a medium of desire, transgression, or oppression. The section "Faking It: Sex, Class, and Gender Mobility" features essays by Marjorie Garber, Natasha Korda, and Valeria Finucci. "Ogling: The Circulation of Power" includes contributions from Harry Berger, Lynn Enterline, and Regina Schwartz. "Loving and Loathing: The Economics of Subjection" presents essays by Juliana Schiesari and William Kerrigan, while "Dreaming On: Uncanny Encounters" features Elizabeth J. Bellamy and David Lee Miller.
