Additional information
by Sam Fullerton (Author)
This book explores the sudden emergence of graphic sex-talk in English print culture during the events of the English Revolution (1640-60) and argues for the long-term significance of that development for the political culture of late Stuart England and beyond.
Back Jacket
Sexual politics in revolutionary England explores the sudden appearance of graphic sex-talk in polemical print during the English Revolution. This was a novel development, for prior to 1640, explicit sexual language in England was largely confined to subversive oral and scribal forms. Yet after the collapse of press licensing that accompanied the outbreak of civil war, it rapidly evolved into a vital component of mid-century public culture. By the Stuart Restoration, sexual politics had become a routine element of English political life.
This book tells that story for the first time in a sweeping narrative account. Drawing on print and manuscript sources from dozens of archives, it traces the evolution of explicit sex-talk from its pre-war underground roots into a premier mode of public politicking during the 1640s and 1650s. In those years, contemporary ideas about sex and the body invaded crucial mid-century debates over religious toleration, sectarian radicalism, and patriarchal kingship to dramatic effect. In the process, the book shows, sex-talk became a key tool of partisan identity formation and military mobilisation, as contemporaries repeatedly portrayed themselves as morally upright patriarchs and their enemies as promiscuous lechers. By 1660, twenty years of increasingly visible sexual politics had laid formative groundwork for the libertine antics of Charles II's courtiers as well as the caustic slanders levelled against the Restoration court by its godly critics. This book offers an important new context for approaching the history of late Stuart sexual culture - and through it, that of Western sexuality more broadly.Author Biography
Samuel Fullerton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Texas
