The Victorian Novel and/as the History of Sexuality

Might the modern hetero- and homosexual be Victorian constructions that have really "stuck"? We will explore how the Victorian novel contributed to the cultural labor of joining sexuality to a sense of the self, and then pitched in on the effort to meld romance, love, and sexuality into marital relationships. Domesticity, obsession, heterophobia, the Malthusian unconsciousness, and erotic versus romantic friendship will be some of the issues discussed. We will also branch out into issues of pleasure and desire more broadly in Victorian culture. Authors will include Brontë, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Charlotte Yonge, and Wilde.