Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture ed. by Margreta de Grazia, etc.

I needed one essay from this volume for an essay I was writing, and loved it so much that I wound up reading all of it. The introduction alone basically changed my life. This is a collection of essays that investigate the importance of things and representation in Renaissance culture, challenging the traditional narrative of the 'birth of the individual' in the era. Some of the essays aren't as good as others and are too heavy on theory, indulging in excessive 90s feminism and post-colonialism, but many are completely outstanding. My favourites were Stephen Orgel's essay on gender and iconography, Ann Rosalind Jones's essay on textiles, Louis Montrose's essay on property and domesticity in Edmund Spenser, and probably the best one, Peter Stallybrass's essay on clothes and Renaissance theatre. These essays especially use theory very powerfully and succinctly (instead of drowning both the reader and the things being analyzed in heavy-weight and over-embellished criticism) and are clear, lucid, and beautifully and persuasively argued. Some of the most satisfying and illuminating academic I have ever had the pleasure to read (I mean the best essays, a few are pretty terrible).