Read Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud

Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud

Peter Gay

4.9/5 (22999 ratings)

Description:Traditional views of sexuality in the Victorian age have left us with an unflattering picture of a devious, insincere world populated by mistress-keeping husbands and sexually anesthetic wives. But is this familiar image a fair and accurate one? In this remarkable book—the first volume in a monumental new study of nineteenth-century bourgeois culture—the renowned historian Peter Gay overturns a myriad of stereotypes as he re-examines the sexual behavior and attitudes of this era and its much-maligned middle classes. Drawing upon the insights of psychoanalysis and a vast array of primary sources, Gay unveils a milieu much richer in paradox, ambivalence, and possibility than any previous work has revealed.At once immense in scope and finely detailed, the book abounds in fascinating glimpses of individual lives. Chief among these is the story of Mabel Loomis Todd, a New England wife who savored her vibrant sensuality to the fullest—even to the point of carrying on a lengthy affair with Austin Dickinson, the leading patriarch of genteel Amherst, Massachusetts. Astonishingly, Mrs. Todd's defiance of respectability (a "secret" known both to her husband and to other citizens of Amherst) did not make her an outcast—a fact which Gay sees as a striking sign that bourgeois boundaries of conduct in the 1800s were never so rigid and narrow as many have thought. And, as the author also points out, Mrs. Todd's experiences, which she scrupulously recorded in her journal, fly in the face of the notion that women of her background could not enjoy their sexuality.According to Gay, Mabel Todd's sexuality, though exceptional in many ways, mirrored the yearnings and passions of countless others in the nineteenth century. From diaries, letters, autobiographies, medical texts, and even sex surveys, he meticulously reconstructs the private worlds of these individuals and shows that Mrs. Todd was far from alone. In the process, he confronts an array of important questions. How did the Victorians discover sexuality? What did they know, and what did they repress? How did outside pressures and realities affect their erotic lives? Gay's search for answers leads to a wide-ranging exploration into such areas as contraceptives and abortion, pornography, the nude in works of art, fears about pregnancy and infant mortality, marriage-night anxiety, masturbation, attitudes toward women, and he ideal of privacy.A brilliant product of both massive research and analytical acumen, this book will undoubtedly stir controversy. And just as certainly, it will change the way we view the past.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud. To get started finding Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: —

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: —

Release: —

ISBN: 0393319040

Description: Traditional views of sexuality in the Victorian age have left us with an unflattering picture of a devious, insincere world populated by mistress-keeping husbands and sexually anesthetic wives. But is this familiar image a fair and accurate one? In this remarkable book—the first volume in a monumental new study of nineteenth-century bourgeois culture—the renowned historian Peter Gay overturns a myriad of stereotypes as he re-examines the sexual behavior and attitudes of this era and its much-maligned middle classes. Drawing upon the insights of psychoanalysis and a vast array of primary sources, Gay unveils a milieu much richer in paradox, ambivalence, and possibility than any previous work has revealed.At once immense in scope and finely detailed, the book abounds in fascinating glimpses of individual lives. Chief among these is the story of Mabel Loomis Todd, a New England wife who savored her vibrant sensuality to the fullest—even to the point of carrying on a lengthy affair with Austin Dickinson, the leading patriarch of genteel Amherst, Massachusetts. Astonishingly, Mrs. Todd's defiance of respectability (a "secret" known both to her husband and to other citizens of Amherst) did not make her an outcast—a fact which Gay sees as a striking sign that bourgeois boundaries of conduct in the 1800s were never so rigid and narrow as many have thought. And, as the author also points out, Mrs. Todd's experiences, which she scrupulously recorded in her journal, fly in the face of the notion that women of her background could not enjoy their sexuality.According to Gay, Mabel Todd's sexuality, though exceptional in many ways, mirrored the yearnings and passions of countless others in the nineteenth century. From diaries, letters, autobiographies, medical texts, and even sex surveys, he meticulously reconstructs the private worlds of these individuals and shows that Mrs. Todd was far from alone. In the process, he confronts an array of important questions. How did the Victorians discover sexuality? What did they know, and what did they repress? How did outside pressures and realities affect their erotic lives? Gay's search for answers leads to a wide-ranging exploration into such areas as contraceptives and abortion, pornography, the nude in works of art, fears about pregnancy and infant mortality, marriage-night anxiety, masturbation, attitudes toward women, and he ideal of privacy.A brilliant product of both massive research and analytical acumen, this book will undoubtedly stir controversy. And just as certainly, it will change the way we view the past.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud. To get started finding Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud

Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud

More Books

Freud: A Life for Our Time

Freud: A Life for Our Time

Chess Story

Chess Story

Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider

Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider

The Enlightenment, Volume 1: The Rise of Modern Paganism

The Enlightenment, Volume 1: The Rise of Modern Paganism

Modernism: The Lure of Heresy

Modernism: The Lure of Heresy

Civilization and Its Discontents

Civilization and Its Discontents

Mozart: A Life

Mozart: A Life

The Enlightenment, Volume 2: The Science of Freedom

The Enlightenment, Volume 2: The Science of Freedom

The Ego and the Id

The Ego and the Id