Romantic writings were characterized by privatism—a sexual, economic and ontological withdrawal from otherness. Sexual Privatism in British Romantic Writing: A Public of One explores how this threefold ideology was both propagated and resisted, wittingly and unwittingly.
The Enlightenment sought rational order in the world and found irrationality at every turn, especially where sex was concerned. This short book surveys some varieties of sexual inquiry and anxiety that marked European culture during the eighteenth century.