Sexual continence in the late nineteenth-century aesthetic tradition: Walter Pater, Lionel Johnson, Vernon Lee, George Moore

Thesis

This thesis contends that the idea of productive sexual continence – that is, abstinence from sexual activity understood as a constructive practice – significantly shaped a branch of thought within and around the British Aesthetic Movement of the late nineteenth century. Recent critical work has stressed sexual liberation or permissiveness as among the values of Aestheticism, and has read Aesthetic representations of continent states as indications of repressed, sublimated, or coded sexual...

Expand abstract

Authors: Green, S

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-jnveoemg5
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Late Nineteenth Century; Decadent; Virginity; Sex; Celibacy; Masculinity; Nineteenth Century; Victorian; Aesthetic
• Subjects: English literature