Sexual Freedom In Restoration Literature

E-Book Overview

The pursuit of sexual freedom and its political, philosophical and practical implications are the themes of this wide-ranging new study of seventeenth-century literature. The author examines the writers of the later seventeenth century in their historical context, and focuses particularly on what happens when women, as well as men, desire sexual freedom. In a study of the writings of the Earl of Rochester, notorious for their sexual candor, and of Aphra Behn, most controversial woman of her day, the author explores the tensions inherent in the ideology of individual liberty in the conduct of sexual relations inside and outside marriage.

E-Book Content

The pursuit of sexual freedom and its political, philosophical and practical implications are the themes of this wide-ranging new study of seventeenth-century literature, which confronts ideological issues of sexual politics equally relevant to modern debate. The author examines the writers of the later seventeenth century in their historical context, and focuses particularly on what happens when women as well as men desire sexual freedom. In a study of the writings, notorious for their sexual candour, of the Earl of Rochester, God-haunted atheist and licensed rebel of the Restoration court, and Aphra Behn, the most prominent and most controversial woman writer of the period, the author explores some of the tensions inherent in the ideology of individual liberty as applied to the conduct of sexual relations inside and outside marriage. The works by Rochester, Behn and their contemporaries as discussed here gain much of their power from the ambivalence with which they treat the competing claims of freedom and authority, rebelliousness and security, the assertion of power and the need to love. SEXUAL FREEDOM IN RESTORATION LITERATURE SEXUAL FREEDOM IN RESTORATION LITERATURE WARREN CHERNAIK Reader in English Literature, Queen Mary and Westjield College, University of London | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CBI IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY IOOI 1-421 I, USA 1 o Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1995 First published 1995 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Chernaik, Warren L. Sexual freedom in restoration literature / Warren Chernaik. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o 521 46497 8 (hardback) , English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism. 2. Sex customs in literature. 3. Literature and society - England - History — 17th century. 4. Great Britain - History - Restoration, 1660-1688. 5. Libertines in literature. 6. Liberty in literature. I. Title. PR437.C48 1995 O 94-19823 CIP ISBN o 521 46497 8 hardback Transferred to digital printing 2004 In memory of my mother, Ruth Parker Chernaik Contents Acknowledgements page xi Introduction: the imperfect enjoyment i 1. Hobbes and the libertines 22 2. The tyranny of desire: sex and politics in Rochester 52 3. Absent from thee 80 4. Playing trick for trick: domestic rebellion and the female libertine 116 My masculine part: Aphra Behn and the androgynous imagination 160 5. Conclusion 214 Notes 220 Index 262 IX Acknowledgements This book is very different from the one I started to write nearly ten years ago, and during the book's extended gestation period I have had the benefit of advice and assistance from a number of friends and colleagues. When I
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