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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.
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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