From the 16th to the 18th Century, hermaphrodites were discussed and depicted in a range of artistic, mythological, scientific, and erotic contexts. Early Modern Hermaphrodites looks at some of those representations to explore the stories they tell about ambiguous sex and gender in early modern England. Gilbert examines the often contradictory ways in which hermaphrodites were represented as both spiritual ideals and sexual grotesques; as freaks, erotic objects, and medical curiosities; and as literary metaphors and signs of social decay.
Author(s): Ruth Gilbert
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 232
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Illustrations......Page 10
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Introduction: Sex and Other Stories......Page 14
1 On Gods and Monsters: Defining the Early Modern Hermaphrodite......Page 22
The androgynous ideal: religious and philosophical images......Page 27
The embodied sign: monstrous hermaphroditism......Page 32
Masculine, feminine and hermaphrodite: hermaphroditized gender......Page 38
2 Telling the Truth of Sex: the Hermaphrodite in Biology and Law......Page 46
Sexual difference/sameness: the biology of hermaphroditism......Page 48
Legal problems and hermaphroditic solutions......Page 54
3 Both and Neither: Rewriting Ovid's Hermaphrodite......Page 64
More than a man, less than a woman: Elizabeth I and hermaphroditic androgyny......Page 65
Metamorphic origins: Ovid's 'Salmacis and Hermaphroditus'......Page 70
'A worthy sense': moral readings and rewritings......Page 73
'Their nature knowne too much': the Jacobean and Caroline contexts......Page 77
Hermes and Aphrodite: the parentage of Hermaphroditus......Page 81
'Wanton lines': Beaumont's epyllion......Page 83
4 Mingle-Mangle: Masculine Women and Feminine Men......Page 90
Acting out of gender: the debate......Page 94
'Nature topsie-turvie': siblings, doubling and division......Page 98
Performing gender: Mary Frith/Moll Cutpurse......Page 105
'Rare enigmatick Robbin': hermaphroditic relationships......Page 110
5 Every Heteroclite Part: the Monstrous Hermaphrodite and the English Revolution......Page 117
'Thy right legge takes thy left to dance': Cleveland's hermaphrodite......Page 119
'Fortune's jigg': the hermaphrodite image in the popular press......Page 131
(En)Gendering power: the hermaphroditic body politic......Page 139
Re-membering power......Page 145
6 Seeing and Knowing: Science, Pornography and the Hermaphrodite......Page 149
Seeing and knowing......Page 150
The science of pornography/the pornography of science......Page 152
Naming the parts: the hermaphrodite as object of enquiry......Page 155
Case histories, curiosities and display......Page 157
Foreign parts: tribades, hermaphrodites and colonialism......Page 162
Unspeakable desires: the hermaphrodite as erotic entertainment......Page 167
Epilogue: Re/covering the Early Modern Hermaphrodite......Page 171
Notes......Page 176
Bibliography......Page 206
D......Page 223
H......Page 224
M......Page 225
S......Page 226
Z......Page 227
