Description
Book SynopsisThe work of leading scholar Terry Castle, called by the New York Times always engaging...consistently fascinating, has helped to revolutionize thinking about lesbian studies and eighteenth-century literature. Reenvisioning the era as peculiarly alive with complexity, in which gender, sexuality, and culture are in constant flux, she offers provocative new theories on culture and sexual identity. This collection offers several of Castle''s liveliest essays on female identity from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. Throughout the book are woven themes which are constant in Castle''s work: fantasy, hallucination, travesty, transgression, and sexual ambiguity. Like the mythical thermometer of the title, which was purported to measure female lasciviousness, literature is filled with devices for quantifying elements of women''s nature and sexuality which are hard to define--or uncomfortable to confront. Looking at images that mask or mystify female nature, like the masquer
Trade ReviewThe Female Thermometer is filled with incisive observations that make us re-examine the broad preconceptions we hold about the 18th century and reassess some of its specific cultural artifacts. * The New York Times *
