Sexuality and Feminism in Shelley / / Nathaniel Brown.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Brown, Nathaniel,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1979
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (298 p.)

More than a literary study, this book is an analysis of sexual attitudes and practices in the Romantic period, and a contribution to the history and theory of feminism. Shelley is shown to have anticipated in many ways the work of modern students of human sexual behavior. He was strikingly ahead of his time in his attitude toward women: his ideal of love postulated the equality of the sexes, and his theory of psychosexual identification, like mated to like, extended the feminist ideology of his mother-in-law, Mary Wollstonecraft. Moreover, in his own person and practice he came close to the androgynous ideal of the modern woman's movement. In exploring the many aspects of his subject, Brown compares Shelley with his contemporaries, particularly Byron, and draws upon extensive research into the laws, ideas, and practices of the period.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- 1. A DISCOURSE ON LOVE -- 2. LOVE’S TYPOLOGY -- 3. LOVES VISIBLE LINK -- 4. CIVILIZED SEX -- 5. LAWLESS LOVE -- 6. THE MALE EROS -- 7. LOVE’S DOMINION -- 8. IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN -- 9. THE EYE OF SANE PHILOSOPHY -- 10. THE DETESTABLE DISTINCTIONS OF SEX -- ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES -- NOTES -- INDEX