When Flesh Becomes Word: An Anthology of Early Eighteenth-Century Libertine Literature

ISBN-13: 9780195161878 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 368 str.

Bradford Keyes Mudge

Opis

When Flesh Becomes Word collects nine different examples of British libertine literature that appeared before 1750. Three of these--The School of Venus (1680), Venus in the Cloister (1725), and A Dialogue Between a Married Lady and a Maid (1740)--are famous "whore dialogues," dramatic conversations between an older, experienced woman and a younger, inexperienced maid. Previously unavailable to the modern reader, these dialogues combine sex education, medical folklore, and erotic literature in a decidedly proto-pornographic form. This edition presents other important examples of libertine literature, including bawdy poetry, a salacious medical treatise, an irreverent travelogue, and a criminal biography. The combination of both popular and influential texts presented in this edition provides an accessible introduction to the variety of material available to eighteenth-century readers before the publication of John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in 1749.

Recenzje

Given the rarity and yet the unacknowledged importance of these kinds of work, Mudge provides a significant service for understanding both the origins of the novel and the special character of pornography. Highly recommended.

O autorze

Bradford K. Mudge is Professor of English at the University of Colorado and the author of The Whore's Story: Women, Pornography, and the British Novel, 1684-1830.