Early Modern Hermaphrodites

From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, hermaphrodites were discussed and depicted in a range of artistic, mythological, scientific and erotic contexts. Early Modern Hermaphrodites looks at some of those representations to explore the stories they tell about ambiguous sex and gender in early modern England. Gilbert examines the often contradictory ways in which hermaphrodites were represented as both spiritual ideals and sexual grotesques; as freaks, erotic objects and medical curiosities' and as literary metaphors and signs of social decay.

'To future generations this book will...illustrate the transformation of sexual curiosity into an academic discipline.' - Contemporary Review

Autorentext
RUTH GILBERT is Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton. She is co-editor with Erica Fudge and Susan Wiseman of At the Borders of the Human: Beasts, Bodies and Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern Period.

Inhalt
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Sex and Other Stories On Gods and Monsters: Defining the Early Modern Hermaphrodite Telling the Truth of Sex: The Hermaphrodite in Biology and Law Both and Neither: Rewriting Ovid's Hermaphrodite Mingle-Mangle: Masculine Women and Feminine Men Every Heteroclite Part: The Monstrous Hermaphrodite and the English Revolution Seeing and Knowing: Science, Pornography and the Hermaphrodite Epilogue: Re/covering the Early Modern Hermaphrodite Endnotes Bibliography Index