TY - BOOK AU - Pulham,Patricia AU - Wolfreys,Julian TI - The Sculptural Body in Victorian Literature: Encrypted Sexualities T2 - Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture : ECSVC SN - 9780748693429 U1 - 820.9/35709034 23 PY - 2022///] CY - Edinburgh : PB - Edinburgh University Press, KW - English literature KW - 19th century KW - History and criticism KW - Lust in literature KW - Sculpture in literature KW - Touch in literature KW - Literary Studies KW - LITERARY CRITICISM / Feminist KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; List of Illustrations --; Series Editor’s Preface --; Acknowledgements --; Introduction --; 1. Nineteenth-Century Pygmalions: The Sexual Politics of Tactility --; 2. Artworks in Marble: Capturing Venus in Durable Form --; 3. ‘Of marble men and maidens’: Sculptural Transformations --; 4. Statuephilia and the Love of the Impossible --; 5. Between Death and Sleep: Libidinal Entombments --; Bibliography --; Index; restricted access N2 - Explores Victorian writers’ erotic investment in statuesTheorises the function of the sculptural body in Victorian poetry and proseOffers thorough readings of sculpture in Victorian texts and contextsExamines a wide range of works by well-known and lesser-known writers of the period (e.g. Thomas Hardy, John Ruskin, Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, Olive Custance, Arthur O’Shaughnessy)Extends the British focus to encompass nineteenth-century European and American writings This book argues that, in Victorian literature, desires which cannot be openly acknowledged are often buried and encrypted in the marble bodies of statues. Examining sculpture’s ubiquity in Victorian galleries and museums Pulham observes that, while touch is prohibited in these cultural locations, Victorian texts offer ‘safe’ spaces where statues may be kissed or caressed using metaphors of tactility that work at the intersections of touch and vision to permit the recovery of forbidden love UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748693436 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780748693436 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780748693436/original ER -