Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- “The Secrets of Generation Display'd”: Aristotle's Master-piece in Eighteenth-Century England
- Sexual Imagination as Revealed in the Traité des superstitions of Abbé Jean-Baptiste Thiers
- Married but not Churched: Plebeian Sexual Relations and Marital Nonconformity in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Moral Values in “La Suite de l'Entretien”
- Prostitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century England
- The Properties of Libertinism
- Between the Licit and the Illicit: the Sexuality of the King
- The Sublimations of a Fetishist: Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806)
- Sodomitical Subcultures, Sodomitical Roles, and the Gender Revolution of the Eighteenth Century: The Recent Historiography
- The Priest, the Philosopher, and Homosexuality in Enlightenment France
- The Pursuit of Homosexuality in the Eighteenth Century: “Utterly Confused Category” and/or Rich Repository?
- Sodomy in the Dutch Republic during the Eighteenth Century
- Parisian Homosexuals Create a Lifestyle, 1700-1750: The Police Archives
- The Censor Censured: Expurgating Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
- Chthonic and Pelagic Metaphorization in Eighteenth-Century English Erotica
- Modes of Discourse and the Language of Sexual Reference in Eighteenth-Century French Fiction
- The Mélange de poésies diverses (1781) and the Diffusion of Manuscript Pornography in Eighteenth-Century France
- Obscene Literature in Eighteenth-Century Italy: an Historical and Bibliographical Note
The Mélange de poésies diverses (1781) and the Diffusion of Manuscript Pornography in Eighteenth-Century France
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- “The Secrets of Generation Display'd”: Aristotle's Master-piece in Eighteenth-Century England
- Sexual Imagination as Revealed in the Traité des superstitions of Abbé Jean-Baptiste Thiers
- Married but not Churched: Plebeian Sexual Relations and Marital Nonconformity in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Moral Values in “La Suite de l'Entretien”
- Prostitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century England
- The Properties of Libertinism
- Between the Licit and the Illicit: the Sexuality of the King
- The Sublimations of a Fetishist: Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806)
- Sodomitical Subcultures, Sodomitical Roles, and the Gender Revolution of the Eighteenth Century: The Recent Historiography
- The Priest, the Philosopher, and Homosexuality in Enlightenment France
- The Pursuit of Homosexuality in the Eighteenth Century: “Utterly Confused Category” and/or Rich Repository?
- Sodomy in the Dutch Republic during the Eighteenth Century
- Parisian Homosexuals Create a Lifestyle, 1700-1750: The Police Archives
- The Censor Censured: Expurgating Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
- Chthonic and Pelagic Metaphorization in Eighteenth-Century English Erotica
- Modes of Discourse and the Language of Sexual Reference in Eighteenth-Century French Fiction
- The Mélange de poésies diverses (1781) and the Diffusion of Manuscript Pornography in Eighteenth-Century France
- Obscene Literature in Eighteenth-Century Italy: an Historical and Bibliographical Note
Summary
With the rise of the middle class in eighteenth-century France and a general increase in the literacy level of all classes (a phenomenon by no means confined to France), more people began to read, and more books were printed to satisfy the demand. Since the increase in the reading public was not paralleled by as marked an increase in higher or advanced education, the kinds of books that proliferated dramatically were especially to be found among practical works (devotional, educational, culinary, and the like) and leisure literature: novels, plays, and poetry. Silas Jones' bibliography covering the first half of the century lists only 26 new works of French prose fiction for the years 1700-1701 (excluding translations), whereas in contrast Martin, Mylne, and Frautschi list 113 new works and 38 new translations for 1800 alone, with the total number of reeditions reaching 114 (85 originals and 29 translations).
In brief, as the century wound its way to a bloody conclusion, more people were reading an expanding body of works which were, generally, becoming more and more moralistic and sombre. The evidence put forth by Martin, Mylne, and Frautschi in their elegant tables on fiction is also true of other genres, and it reflects a general change, or development, in attitudes and values which was especially evident in France. For example, the public enjoyed Richardson's Clarissa and especially the French adaptations which tended to tone down or even eliminate scenes of rape and violence.
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- 'Tis Nature's FaultUnauthorized Sexuality during the Enlightenment, pp. 229 - 243Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988