Jonathan Swift joined in with the commentary on female independence in a series of poems which demonstrate male anxiety towards feminine privacy, ‘The poems ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed’ and ‘The Progress of Beauty’ use dressing room scenes to debunk the concept of beauty foregrounded in their titles and to offer narratives ofContinue reading “Castration Anxiety in Jonathan Swift 4: The Anxious Swift”
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Castration Anxiety in Jonathan Swift 2: The Cultural Context
Privacy was a highly valued commodity in eighteenth-century England and was normally invested in a locked cabinet or private closetin the house to which only the male head of the household had access. Samuel Johnson defined the cabinet in his Dictionary of the English Language as a ‘private box’ in which valuable things are hiddenContinue reading “Castration Anxiety in Jonathan Swift 2: The Cultural Context”
Beyond the Underground 