Willful submission : sado-erotics and heavenly marriage in Victorian religious poetry / Amanda Paxton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paxton, Amanda, author.

Series:

Victorian literature and culture series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--19th century--History and criticism.

English poetry.

Christian poetry, English--19th century--History and criticism.

Christian poetry, English.

Poetry--Religious aspects.

Poetry.

Eroticism in literature.

Sexual dominance and submission in literature.

Patriarchy--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Patriarchy.

Women's rights--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Women's rights.

Literature and society--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and society.

History.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 228 pages ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

Sado-erotics and heavenly marriage in Victorian religious poetry

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2017.

Summary:

"Through a series of case studies examining three major branches of Victorian Christianity, this volume makes groundbreaking connections between desire and suffering in nineteenth-century English literature and culture. In the age of "progress," alongside the Darwinian revolution, the women's suffrage movement, and the march of industrialization ran a seemingly paradoxical fascination with a dark, erotically suggestive side of religious devotion: the figuration of the Christian God as a heavenly bridegroom who doles out punishment to his bride, the individual soul. Unsurprisingly, the model of a punitive deity-husband and a dutifully submissive wife proved to be a convenient rhetorical tool by which to defend against burgeoning nineteenth-century campaigns for women's rights and challenges to Church authority. More remarkably, however, in the hands of certain writers it provided a means of resisting patriarchal institutions, interrogating ideological distinctions between science and religion, and positing new, non-binary gender identities"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Bridal desires

Anti-Catholicism and nuptial anxieties

Tractarian poetry and radical masochism

Catholicism and the metaphysics of longing

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780813940779

081394077X

OCLC:

988169380