Loading...
The libertine, the rake, and the dandy : Personae, styles, and affects
O'Connell, Lisa Marie
O'Connell, Lisa Marie
Author
Abstract
The parade of sexualized personae that features in this chapter's title carries a history. Libertines, rakes, and dandies are figures that occur in a sequence that begins in the sixteenth century and effectively comes to an end by the twentieth century, although it is a sequence marked by overlaps and ambiguities. Drawing on a rich body of scholarship, the chapter traces passages from the libertine through the rake and dandy, concentrating on each in turn. It focuses on metropolitan England, where, arguably, the libertine, the rake, and the dandy came most vividly to life. Libertinage has a long and complex history that reaches back into antiquity. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the category was mainly applied to a kind of writing that already held a firm place in manuscript culture. Rake is more concretely bound to particular sites and institutions than the libertine, and especially to a particular moment in the court's recent past.
Keywords
libertine, libertinage, literature, homosexuality in literature, spectacle, Lord Byron, William Beckford, Horace Walpole, England, rake, dandy
Date
2014
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature
Volume
Issue
Page Range
218
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled
Notes
© E. L. McCallum and Mikko Tuhkanen 2014
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.