Full Description
Developments in the Histories of Sexualities: In Search of the Normal,1600-1800 explores the oppositionscreated by the official exclusion ofbanned sexual practices and theresistance to that exclusion throughwidespread acceptance of thoseoutlawed practices at an interpersonallevel. At different times and in differentplaces, state legislation sets up—ortries to set up—a "normal" by rejectinga particular practice or group ofpractices. Yet this "normal" is derogatedby popular practice, since the bannedacts themselves are thought at thegrassroots level to be "normal." Amongthe events discussed in these essaysare the Woods-Pirie trial, the "Ladies ofLlangollen," the popular acceptance offops and mollies, and the press reactionto the discovery that James Allen wasa woman who had lived successfullyas a man and Lavinia Edwards wasa man who had made her living as afemale prostitute. Developments in the History of Sexualities analyzesboth the state language of bansand fiats about sexuality, and thegrassroots language which marks theacceptance of multiplicity in sexualpractice. Contributors benefit fromthe accumulation of new evidenceof attitudes towards sexual practice,and they engage with a wide range oftexts, including Ned Ward's History of the Clubs, Tobias Smollett's Roderick Random, Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and The Tempest, Dryden's All for Love, Anne Batten Cristall's Poetical Sketches, Isaac de Benserade's Iphis et Iante, and Alessandro Verri's Le Avventure di Saffo.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Sexuality Post(con)structuralism and After
Chris Mounsey
One: The History of Homosexuality Reconsidered
George Haggerty
Two: Queer Renaissance Dramaturgy, Shakespeare's Shrew, and the Deconstruction of Marriage
David Orvis
Three: 'Unusual Fires': Ann Batten Cristall's Queer Temporality
Chris Nagle
Four: De-sexing the Lesbian: Isaac de Benserade's Narrative Quest
Marianne Legault
Five: Unqueering Sappho and Effeminizing the Author in Early Modern Italy
Clorinda Donato
Six: 'A Thing Perhaps Impossible': The 1811 Woods/Pirie Trial and Its Legacies
Chris Roulston
Seven: The Molly and the Fop: Untangling Effeminacy in the Eighteenth Century
Sally O'Driscoll
Eight: Considering Female Masculinities in Eighteenth Century Britain
Katharine Kittredge
Nine: The Sound of Men in Love
Thomas Alan King
Ten: "An Extraordinary Subject for Dissection": James Allen and Lavinia Edwards
Caroline Gonda
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors
