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The Dark Angel

其他書名	Aspects of Victorian Sexuality
出版	Universe Books, 1977
主題	History / Europe / Great Britain / Victorian Era (1837-1901)Social Science / Human Sexuality
ISBN	08766322909780876632291
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=IyEEAQAAIAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋The Other Victorians, Steven Marcus's best-selling book of a decade ago, examined the sexual subculture of mid-Victorian England. In THE DARK ANGEL, Fraser Harrison goes beyond the pornographic industry studied by Marcus to show that the sexual conflicts of middle- and lower-class men and women were reflected in Victorian poetry, novels, and sex manuals—even in letters to newspaper editors. The Victorian era, in fact, was synonymous with sexual repression. 'To study Victorian sexuality is, in effect, to trace the evolution of Victorian marriage. Fraser Harrison opens THE DARK ANGEL by examining middle-class marriage during its belle epoque, the mid-Victorian period—and shows how deeply relations between the sexes had been penetrated by monetary considerations. Men had come to identify their sexuality with financial prowess and to consider their wives as slaves whose primary function was to provide their husbands with legitimate heirs. It is in this light that the author considers the Victorian sexual code. During the last thirty years of Victoria's reign, however, the combined impact of a declining economy and the female emancipation movement transformed middle-class marriage. Women no longer accepted their submissive role, masculine superiority was challenged, and the fraudu-lence of the moral double standard was exposed. The novels of Du Maurier, Kipling, and Grant Allen, the'scientific' works on sex by Havelock Ellis and Patrick Geddes, and the paintings of Frederick Leighton illustrate the fearful, reactionary behavior of men when faced with women's demands for social and sexual equality. A separate chapter is devoted to Wilson Steer's remarkable attempts to bring a sense of flesh and blood reality to the portrayal of the female nude. A large section on working-class sexuality describes the inhuman conditions in which the poor lived, many in such extreme deprivation that they were forced to accept total celibacy. Overcrowding, malnutrition, and chronic anxiety not only stripped away their self-respect but reduced working-class couples to the point of desperation where violence became their only medium of expression. In a final section on Victorian prostitution, Harrison contrasts the grim economic facts of working-class life with the comments of middle-class observers who sought to explain the Great Social Evil by condemning prostitutes for their sinfulness, indolence, and vanity. But he makes it clear that destitution alone was responsible for the huge armies of women who tramped the streets in search of clients. They existed symbiotically with the Victorian 'gentlemen' who found their greatest sexual pleasure in relationships based on money. Fraser Harrison's sensitive treatment of Victorian marriage and sexuality—and of the enslavement and slow emancipation of Victorian women—will appeal to a broad audience. The paintings that illustrate the book help to illuminate the author's trenchant analyses. THE AUTHOR: Formerly a publisher's editor, literary agent, and compiler of an anthology of The Yellow Book (1974), Fraser Harrison now lives in Suffolk, where he is currently at work on a study of Oscar Wilde's sexual and literary development. Jacket illustration: In the Tepidarium by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema is reproduced by kind permission of The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight.