Sex variant women in literature

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

77276

Title

Sex variant women in literature

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

Dr. Jeannette H. Foster's "Sex Variant Women in Literature" offers a historical and quantitative survey of fictional works featuring women with non-heterosexual orientations. Spanning from the Romantics to the Moderns, this scholarly text traces the evolution of lesbian representation, analyzing how shifting scientific, political, and social attitudes influenced literary depictions of female variance.

Summary up to 500 words

In *Sex Variant Women in Literature*, Dr. Jeannette H. Foster presents a comprehensive historical and quantitative survey of literary works featuring women with variant sexual orientations, primarily from the late eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Foster contextualizes these narratives within the broader intellectual currents of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the Romantic Movement's exaltation of emotion, the rise of scientific inquiry into human sexuality, and the Women's Movement. She argues that while such works were historically sparse, they served as vital mirrors to shifting social attitudes and legal struggles for equality. Foster identifies key precursors to modern fiction, such as Denis Diderot's *La Religieuse* and Mary Wollstonecraft's *Mary*, which broke new ground by portraying female desire and the psychological toll of institutional repression. The text traces the evolution from underground erotic literature to serious fiction, highlighting how authors like Frank Wedekind and Anna Elisabet Weirauch navigated censorship and social stigma. A significant portion of the work details the impact of German psychoanalysis and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee on literary freedom, contrasting the relative openness of the 1920s with the subsequent Nazi crackdown. Through a quantitative approach, Foster reveals that early novels featuring variant women averaged only three per decade, a figure that slowly expanded as scientific objectivity and social tolerance grew. The survey covers diverse genres, from novels and dramas to clinical case studies, illustrating the complex interplay between legal battles for rights and the psychological intricacies of female homosexuality. By analyzing the transition from galant writing to modern fiction with its psychological preoccupation, Foster provides a vital resource for understanding how literature has both mirrored and shaped the discourse on female sexuality over two centuries. The book stands as a testament to the struggle for representation, documenting how authors pushed boundaries to explore themes previously relegated to the margins of society.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

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Categories

• Women in literature
• Sex in literature
• Lesbians in literature