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Unstable Bodies: Victorian Representations of Sexuality and Maternity
Unstable Bodies Victorian Representations of Sexuality and Maternity Author:Jill L. Matus This work uses bio-medical, social scientific and literary texts to interrogate Victorian ideas of sexual difference. It emphasizes the effects in Victorian culture of notions of sexual instability and approximation. While ideas about mutable or ambiguous sexuality provoked fear and fascination, they also served Victorian middle-class ideology b... more »y offering "scientific" ways of constructing racial, class and national identity in terms of the body. Throughout this period fierce public debates raged around prostitution, infanticide, working-class sexuality, female reproduction and domesticity. Drawing on works by Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and the Brontes, the author explores the dialogue between literary and other discourses of sexuality.« less