Exquisite Masochism: Marriage, Sex, and the Novel Form

by Claire Jarvis

A groundbreaking approach to the Victorian marriage plot.

How did realist novelists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries hint at sex while maintaining a safe distance from pornography? Metaphors helped: waves, oceans, blooms, and illuminations were all deployed in respectable realist novels to allude to the sexual act, allowing writers to portray companionate marriage while avoiding graphic description. But in Exquisite...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1421419939
• ISBN13: 9781421419930
• Release Date: June 2016
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher