Swords in Myrtle Dress'd: Towards a Rhetoric of Sodom : Gay Readings of Homosexual Politics and Poetics in the Eighteenth CenturyPart 1 offers readings of homosexuality in early homophobic tracts, in Grub Street productions lampooning a preferment dispute involving the bishop of London, in the London newspapers, in political pamphlets attacking Lord Hervey, and in a casebook by a clergyman defending himself against the charge of sodomizing one of his own parishioners. Part 2 offers readings of homoeroticism in Akenside's The Pleasures of Imagination and his Odes, where homosexuality manifests itself indirectly, through elision and through Akenside's own revision of his most homoerotic passages. |
Contents
7 | |
15 | |
17 | |
Formal Strain Problems of Homosexual Expression in William Arnalls Letter to Dr Codex Philalethes The Parson and His Clerk and Thomas Gilberts ... | 37 |
The Wadhamites Homosocial versus Homosexual in CollegeWit Sharpend and A Faithful Narrative | 52 |
Sporus before Us Some Versions of Hervey | 65 |
Mr Bradburys Case Truly Stated A Polyvalent Text | 88 |
Akensides Pleasures A Midcentury Poetics of Elision | 113 |
Wilkes Churchill and George III The Politics of Homophobia 2 A LateCentury Coda | 173 |
Essays on Men and Women Homophobia and Misogyny in Wilkess Satire of Popes Essay on Man | 175 |
Formal Strain Homophobia in Churchills The Times | 183 |
The Homosexual Stage The Rosciad | 196 |
George III as Schoolboy King | 210 |
Toward a Rhetoric of Sodom | 227 |
Notes | 230 |
Select Bibliography | 235 |
Narcissism and Homoeroticism in Mark Akensides The Pleasures of Imagination | 115 |
Invoking Present Absence Women in Akensides Odes | 148 |
Index | 241 |
Common terms and phrases
accusation Akenside Akenside's Alcaeus alleged analogy appear Arnall Arnall's attack Baker beauty becomes Bradbury Bradbury's Briton Brown Churchill Churchill's clergy crime depicted describes discourse doctor Dyson earl of Bute Edward Edward III effeminacy eighteenth-century elided elision ephebe expression female feminine Finally Foucault George George III Harmodius Harmodius and Aristogeiton Hearne Hearne's Hervey Hervey's heterosexual Hipparchus homo homoerotic homoeroticism Homophobia homophobic homosexual homosocial identified illustration implication indicates James Hearne kind king later least liberty lines Lord male marriage masculine means metaphor misogyny moral Mortimer nature neoclassicism never nonessential North Briton obviously Pallet passage perhaps Pleasures poem poem's poet poetry political polyvalency Pope Pope's priest princess probably Pulteney reason relationship republicanism role satire seems sexual Smollett sodomy stanza suggests Swinton texts Theocles thing Thistlethwayte thou Thucydides tion tracts truth typical unnatural vice virtue warden Whitaker Wilkes Wilkes's woman women writer young youth
Popular passages
Page 89 - Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it, any more than silences are. We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy.
Page 85 - A Cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Page 198 - Ne'er blush'd, unless, in spreading vice's snares, She blunder'd on some virtue unawares : With all these blessings, which we seldom find Lavish'd by nature on one happy mind, A motley figure, of the fribble tribe, Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe, Came simp'ring on : to ascertain whose sex Twelve sage impannell'd matrons would perplex.
Page 204 - And chant the praise of an Italian tribe ; Let him reverse kind Nature's first decrees, And teach e'en Brent a method not to please ; But never shall a truly British age Bear a vile race of eunuchs on the stage. The boasted work 's call'd national in vain, If one Italian voice pollutes the strain. Where tyrants rule, and slaves with joy obey, I .et slavish minstrels pour th' enervate lay ; To Britons far more noble pleasures spring, In native notes whilst Beard and Vincent sing.
Page 9 - ... to account for the fact that it is spoken about, to discover who does the speaking, the positions and viewpoints from which they speak, the institutions which prompt people to speak about it and which store and distribute the things that are said.
Page 197 - For who like him his various pow'rs could call Into so many shapes, and shine in all ? Who could so nobly grace the motley list ? Actor, Inspector, Doctor, Botanist ! Knows any one so well— sure no one knows— At once to play, prescribe, compound, compose ? Who can — But Woodward came — Hill slipp'd away, Melting, like ghosts, before the rising day.
Page 180 - Oh blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Page 201 - Though for each million he had brought home four! Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair, And hopes the friends of humour will be there...