On the Queerness of Early English Drama: Sex in the Subjunctive. Tison Pugh. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. x + 242 pp. $65

On another level, the book focuses on a range of sexual expression in early English dramatic literature, revealing a pattern not only of “reticence about queer sexualities and identities” but also frequent depiction of “heterosexual affection as a sign of moral depravity” (9). Pugh examines a wide array of drama, applied here “in its broad sense to an entertainment designed for performance by actors assuming the roles of characters and enacting a storyline while reciting dialogue” (13), from the 1300s to the 1570s. A very helpful survey of such works culminates in close analysis of Terrence McNally's 1998 play Corpus Christi, which reimagines Jesus as a gay man from Texas and, in doing so, “conflates the tropes of passion plays and of morality plays” (174).