Title Sexual privatism in British romantic writing : a public of one / Adam Komisaruk

Published New York, NY : Routledge, 2019

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 216 pages) Series Routledge studies in romanticism Routledge studies in romanticism. Contents The law of rape -- Homo economicus -- Tortious conversations -- In the pigsty -- Malthusian husbandries -- Love among the ruins Summary The Romantic age, though often associated with free erotic expression, was ambivalent about what if anything sex had to do with the public sphere. Late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century British texts often repressed the very sexual energies they claimed to be bringing into the open. The delineation of what could and could not be said and done in the name of physical pleasure was of a piece with the capitalist consecration of the social trust to the individual profit-motive. Both these practices, moreover, presupposed a determinate self with sovereignty over its own interests. Writings from and about some nominally public institutions were thus characterized by privatism--a sexual, economic and ontological withdrawal from otherness. Sexual Privatism in British Romantic Writing: A Public of One explores how this threefold ideology was both propagated and resisted, wittingly and unwittingly, successfully and unsuccessfully, in such Romantic "publics" as rape-law, sodomy-law, adultery-law, high-profile scandals, the population debates, and club-culture. It includes readings of imaginative literature by William Beckford, William Blake, Erasmus Darwin, Mary Hays, Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft; works of political economy by Jeremy Bentham, William Cobbett, William Godwin, William Hazlitt and Thomas Robert Malthus; as well as contemporary legal treatises, popular journalism and satirical pamphlets Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Adam Komisaruk is Associate Professor of English at West Virginia University. He is the author of several articles on British Romantic and eighteenth-century literature; and the editor, with Allison Dushane, of Erasmus Darwin's The Botanic Garden (2 vols., Routledge, 2017) Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed Subject English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Sex in literature. Privacy in literature. Property in literature. Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century Law and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Law and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Romanticism -- Great Britain LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. LITERARY CRITICISM -- General. English literature. Law and literature. Literature and society. Privacy in literature. Property in literature. Romanticism. Sex in literature. Great Britain. Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History. Form Electronic book LC no. 2019015759 ISBN 9781351108553 1351108557 9781351108546 1351108549 1351108530 9781351108522 1351108522 9781351108539

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