Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. x, 267 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

1. In eighteenth-century Britain, venereal disease was everywhere and nowhere: while physicians and commentators believed the condition to be widespread, it remained shrouded in secrecy, and was often represented using slang, symbolism, and wordplay. In this book, the author explores the cultural significance of the "clap" (gonorrhea), the "pox" (syphilis), and the "itch" (genital scabies) for the development of eighteen-century British literature and art. As a condition both represented through metaphors and used as a metaphor, venereal disease provided a vehicle for the discussion of cultural anxieties about gender, race, commerce, and immigration. The author highlights four key concepts associated with venereal disease, demonstrating how infection's symbolic potency was enhanced by its links to elite masculinity, prostitution, foreignness, and facial deformities. Casting light where the sun rarely shines, this study will fascinate anyone interested in the history of literature, art, medicine, and sexuality.

Subject

1. Sexually Transmitted Diseases > history
2. Medicine > England > History > 18th century
3. England
4. Sexually transmitted diseases > England > History > 18th century
5. Sexually transmitted diseases in literature > History > 18th century
6. Medicine in Literature > history
7. Sexually transmitted diseases in art > History > 18th century
8. History, 18th Century
9. Medicine in the Arts > history

Contents

1. Introduction -- Officers and gentlemen -- The pox and prostitution -- Foreigners -- A chapter of noses -- Conclusion.

Call number

1. JFE 19-4086

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Author

1. Gallagher, Noelle, author.

Title

1. Itch, clap, pox : venereal disease in the eighteenth-century imagination / Noelle Gallagher.

Publisher

1. New Haven : Yale University Press, [2018]

Copyright date

1. ©2018

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Bibliography

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN

1. 9780300217056 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
2. 0300217056 (hardcover ; alk. paper)

Research call number

1. JFE 19-4086