When Flesh Becomes Word

An Anthology of Early Eighteenth-Century Libertine Literature

Bradford K. Mudge 2004

E-Book: 368 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Download: When Flesh Becomes Word: An Anthology of Early Eighteenth-Century Libertine Literature (Mudge 2004). 

When Flesh Becomes Word collects nine different examples of British libertine literature that appeared before 1750. Three of these–The School of Venus (1680), Venus in the Cloister (1725), and A Dialogue Between a Married Lady and a Maid (1740)–are famous “whore dialogues,” dramatic conversations between an older, experienced woman and a younger, inexperienced maid. Previously unavailable in an affordable edition, these dialogues combine seex education, medical folklore, and errotic literature in a decidedly proto-pornographic form. This edition presents other important examples of libertine literature, including bawdy poetry, a salacious medical treatise, an irreverent travelogue, and a criminal biography. The combination of both popular and influential texts presented in this edition provides an accessible introduction to the variety of material available to eighteenth-century readers before the publication of John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in 1749.