Abstract
The absence of the physical expression of sexuality is a striking characteristic of English literature between 1850 and 1900 and accurately reflects the attitude of the period.1
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References
Alex Comfort, Sexual Behavior in Society. New York: The Viking Press, 1950, p. 69.
James Laver, The Age of Optimism: Manners and Morals 1848–1914. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966, p. 34.
George Gissing, New Grub Street. New York: The Modern Library, 1926, p. 325.
Richard Collier, The General Next to God: The Story of William Booth and the Salvation Army. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1965, p. 128.
Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957, p. 356.
Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1966, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 97.
Ibid., pp. 104–105.
George Moore, Hail and Farewell. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1925, I. 206.
Ibid., I, 213.
George Moore, The Unfilled Field. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1903, p. 378.
Malcolm Brown, George Moore, Seattle: University of Washington Press , 1955, p. xii.
Ibid., p. 40.
Ibid., p. 213.
George Moore clung firmly to his belief in the sexual origin of the arts. In Sister Teresa, the second volume of Evelyn Innes, though published separately, Evelyn comes to realize the conflict in her nature between a deeply ingrained sensuality and the call of the spirit. She is honest enough to perceive that “the human animal finds in the opposite sex the greater part of his and her mental life. She had heard Owen [her former lover] say that the arts arose out of sex....” George Moore, Sister Teresa. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1901, p. 9.
For a thoroughgoing analysis of the hostile reaction provoked by translations of Zola’s novels in England, see William C. Frierson, “The English Controversy Over Realism in Fiction, 1885–1895,” in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XLIII, No. 2, June 1928, pp. 533–550.
George Moore, Esther Waters. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963, p. 61.
Ibid., p. 145.
Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh. New York: The Modern Library, n. d., p. 32.
Ibid., p. 531.
Walter Allen, The English Novel. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1954, p. 361.
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Glicksberg, C.I. (1973). The Victorian Sex-Ethic. In: The Sexual Revolution in Modern English Literature. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6800-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6800-7_1
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