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The pursuit of sexual freedom and its political, philosophical and practical implications are the themes of this wide-ranging study of restoration literature, which confronts ideological issues of sexual politics equally relevant to modern debate. The author examines the writers of the later seventeenth century in their historical context, and focuses particularly on what happens when women desire sexual freedom as well as men. In a study of the writings, notorious for their sexual candour, of the Earl of Rochester, God-haunted atheist and licensed rebel of the Restoration court, and Aphra Behn, the most prominent and most controversial woman writer of the period, the author explores some of the tensions inherent in the ideology of individual liberty as applied to the conduct of sexual relations inside and outside marriage. The works by Rochester, Aphra Behn and their contemporaries gain much of their power from the ambivalence with which they treat the competing claims of freedom and authority, rebelliousness and security, the assertion of power and the need to love.

820 "16" --- English literature --- -Libertines in literature --- Liberty in literature --- Literature and society --- -Sex customs in literature --- Literature --- Literature and sociology --- Society and literature --- Sociology and literature --- Sociolinguistics --- Freedom in literature --- Liberty as a theme in literature --- Dissolute persons in literature --- Licentious persons in literature --- Profligates in literature --- Rakes in literature --- British literature --- Inklings (Group of writers) --- Nonsense Club (Group of writers) --- Order of the Fancy (Group of writers) --- Engelse literatuur--17e eeuw. Periode 1600-1699 --- History and criticism --- History --- -Social aspects --- Great Britain --- -English literature --- Libertines in literature. --- Liberty in literature. --- Sex customs in literature. --- Sexual freedom in literature. --- History and criticism. --- -Great Britain --- -820 "16" --- 820 "16" Engelse literatuur--17e eeuw. Periode 1600-1699 --- Libertines in literature --- Sexual freedom in literature --- Arts and Humanities