Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection [Paperback]

Jeffrey Merrick (Editor), Bryant Ragan (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2000

Homosexuality in Early Modern France is an edited volume of translated documents about male and female homosexuality in France from the Renaissance through the Revolution. It is the first documentary collection in English about homosexuality in any Continental country during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The authors have translated a wide variety of primary documents-religious, legal, criminal, polemical, literary, and philosophical-and have included everything from the arrest records of men accused of sodomy to the writings of Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Diderot. The sources provide empirical evidence about the ways in which people of both sexes and different classes experienced same-sex relations. They also show how these relations were condemned by theologians, jurists, and doctors; regulated by police and magistrates; and manipulated by contemporaries for polemical and political purposes. Homosexuality in Early Modern France examines how the themes of same-sex relations were used in discussions of religious, political, and social issues and it provides an excellent vantage point from which to begin discussions of the representation and experiences of men and women involved in same-sex relations in early modern France. This collection offers scholars, students, and other readers access to texts and documents not previously available in English and provides them with raw material for understanding the questions about subcultures and identities that are at the heart of current debates on the history of sexuality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"All those interested in the history of sexuality in the early modern period will find in this collection of excerpts from often little-known primary texts a rich new source of information on the practice, the policing, and the representation of homosexuality in France. By including documentation ranging from police reports, to literary texts, to scandal sheets, Merrick and Ragan give us fresh insight into the ways that men and women both lived and were thought to be living same-sex sexuality in the country and during the period about which information has been remarkably scarce."--Joan DeJean, University of Pennsylvania

"Merrick and Ragan's absorbing compendium of historical documents relating to same-sex love in early modern France adds immeasurably to our knowledge of European homosexuality before 1800. By way of these poignant, sometimes brutal traces, we enter a phantasmagoric lost world of desire, controversy, and erotic rebellion--yet one with powerful connections to our own."--Terry Castle, Stanford University

About the Author

Jeffrey Merrick is at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Bryant Ragan is at Fordham University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195102576
• ISBN-13: 978-0195102574
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,345,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)