Scarlett Stevens

Thesis

Seventeenth Century Reading Pleasures: Experiencing the Early Modern Erotic

Supervisors: Hannah Jeans (History) and Helen Smith (English)

Research

Funded by WRoCAH, my research explores the pleasure-inducing potential of reading in the seventeenth century. It challenges the current historiography by moving beyond its focus on ‘active’ or ‘intellectual’ reading models; ‘pleasure’ has largely been banished to the periphery of such studies. Drawing on a range of methodologies, from the theory of embodiment to literary theories of affect, I utilise a queer lens to acknowledge the ‘queer potential’ in readers’ descriptions of their reading experiences. I examine a range of printed texts, including medical anatomies, romances and religious works. By looking at texts that can be considered less overtly erotic, my work challenges the notion of a hegemonic pornographic genre. To examine reading experiences, my work draws on autobiographical and didactic accounts of reading, alongside marginalia, to reveal erotic early modern reading experiences and unveil the 'pleasured reader.’