Lanser is one of the most significant voices in the study of lesbian themes in the Renaissance and early modern period, so it's not at all surprising that she does an excellent job at surveying the literature of the period. I'm a smidge less convinced by her framing discussion, suggesting that the significance of Queen Elizabeth I of England's extended reign as a woman, and as an unmarried woman at that, created a special context for disrupting concepts of gender and increasing discourse around female homoeroticism. Co-occurrence is not causation, and one could cite many other female rulers in other eras and locations that did not co-occur with a similar shift in the discourse. But it is certainly true that in later 16th centiury England there was a special awareness of the value and potential of women, and prominant themes of praising women's virtues in human terms rather than purely feminine terms. Along with Valerie Traub, who is cited extensively in the discussion, this is an era well covered by the scholarship in analyses that do no attempt to view gender and sexuality only in reference to modern frameworks, but that explore them in their own context.
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