Volume 24, Number 13 · August 4, 1977
A Late Victorian Love Affair
By Richard Ellmann
The nineteenth century was a great period for both the closeting and the uncloseting of sexual themes. We like to suppose that the reaction against Victorianism was a phenomenon of this century, not of that one. But it was of course well under way before Victoria died. In those days writers could make their slight breakthroughs with considerable subtlety. Today writers have to content themselves with bare forked creatures for characters, but then a penumbra surrounded erotic events, and writers of fiction could manipulate that penumbra like a figleaf.
Feature, 6840 words
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