Sexual Restraint and Aesthetic Experience in Victorian Literary - Decadenc

"Can sexual restraint be good for you? Many Victorians thought so. This book explores a surprisingly positive view of restraint in an unlikely place: late nineteenth-century Decadence. It reads Decadent texts alongside medical manuals, periodicals, and adverts, finding representations of restraint as healthy, productive, and aesthetically enriching"--

List of contents

1. Loss and gain: the Victorian sexual body; 2. 'A passionate coldness': Walter Pater; 3. 'A holy indifference and tolerant favour': Lionel Johnson; 4. 'An ascetic epicureanism': Vernon Lee; 5. 'Men have died of love': George Moore.

Summary

Can sexual restraint be good for you? Many Victorians thought so. This book explores a surprisingly positive view of restraint in an unlikely place: late nineteenth-century Decadence. It reads Decadent texts alongside medical manuals, periodicals, and adverts, finding representations of restraint as healthy, productive, and aesthetically enriching.

Foreword

Sarah Green shows how late Victorian Decadent literature paradoxically treats sexual restraint as healthy and aesthetically productive.

Product details

• Authors: Sarah Green, Sarah (University of Oxford) Green
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2023
• EAN: 9781108831512
• ISBN: 978-1-108-83151-2
• No. of pages: 274
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Education and learning > Schoolbooks, general education schools; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; English, JUVENILE NONFICTION / Language Arts / General, JUVENILE NONFICTION / Literary Criticism & Collections, Educational: English language & literacy, Educational: English Literature, Educational: First / native language: Literature studies, Educational: First / native language