Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Englightenment
Language: English
Published by Stanford Univ Pr, 1999
- Softcover
- New

Seller: Revaluation Books, Exeter, United KingdomRevaluation Books
AbeBooks seller since January 6, 2003
Condition: New
£ 27.82
Quantity: 2 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
1st edition. 358 pages. 9.50x5.75x0.75 inches. In Stock. This item is printed on demand.
Seller Inventory # __0804736502
- Title
- Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Englightenment
- Author
- Elizabeth Susan Wahl
- Publisher
- Stanford Univ Pr
- Publication year
- 1999
- Condition
- Brand New
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0804736502
- ISBN 13
- 9780804736503
- Item weight
- 0.55 kilograms
This book explores the ambivalent and often contradictory ways in which English and French writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represented relations of intimacy between women. These representations included both a sexualized model of the “lesbian” tribade and an “idealized” model that portrayed female friendship as devoid of sexual expression. Although these two perceptions of female intimacy may seem mutually exclusive, the author argues that both operate as defining parameters, not only for literary representations of relations between women but also for cultural responses to those institutions in which women could gather―salon, convent, theater, or brothel.
Despite increasing evidence of female homosocial and homosexual bonds during this period, representations of female intimacy have remained largely invisible within critical discourse. They are overshadowed either by a dominant heterosexual understanding of such institutions as marriage or prostitution or by historical patterns of male homosexual behavior, to which they often do not correspond. By broadening the concept of intimacy to include relations between women that may evade or subvert the boundaries of “compulsory” heterosexuality, the author argues, one can locate a duality of “polite” and eroticized models of female intimacy in the cultural discourses of both France and England.
Analyzing a variety of legal, medical, and historical materials, as well as literary texts―by Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, Madeleine de Scudéry, Catherine Descartes, Delarivier Manley, and John Cleland―the author outlines a combination of cultural and historical circumstances that contributed to or were symptomatic of increasing consciousness and concern about female homosexuality in England and France. Relating this sexualized model of female intimacy to idealized images of female friendship in mainstream literary texts allows the author to recover an incipient discourse of female homosexuality. She also delineates cultural fantasies about the outcome of unregulated contact between women, as well as underlying fears that such intimacy could foster aberrant social and political behavior in addition to unauthorized sexual relations between women.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Revaluation Books
Exeter, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since January 6, 2003
Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
| Item | 7 to 14 business days | 2 to 3 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 12.50 | £ 30.00 |
Payment methods
Seller's business information
Edward Bowditch Ltd
Exstowe, Exton
Exeter, United Kingdom EX3 0PP
Terms of sale
Legal entity name: Edward Bowditch Ltd
Legal entity form: Limited company
Business correspondence address: Exstowe, Exton, Exeter, EX3 0PP
Company registration number: 04916632
VAT registration: GB834241546
Authorised representative: Mr. E. Bowditch
Right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer you can withdraw from the contract in accordance with the following. Consumer means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession.
Information regarding the right of withdrawal
Statutory right to withdraw
You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the last good or the last lot or piece.
To exercise the right of withdrawal, electronically fill in and submit a clear statement on our website, under "My Purchases" in "My Account". We will communicate to you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by e-mail) without delay.
To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.
Effects of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you chose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us).
We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is the result of unnecessary handling by you.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract.
We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.
We may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back, or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.
You shall send back the goods or hand them over to Revaluation Books, Hounslow, United Kingdom, without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which you communicate your withdrawal from this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of 14 days has expired. You will have to bear the direct cost of returning the goods. You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from the handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.
Exceptions to the right of withdrawal
The right of withdrawal does not apply to:
- The delivery of newspapers, journals or magazines with the exception of subscription contracts; and
- The supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium (e.g. on a CD or DVD) if you accepted when you placed your order that we could start to deliver it, and that you could not withdraw once delivery had started.
Shipping terms
Orders usually dispatched within two working days.