All my lifetime, until very recently, conventional wisdom has had it that there was something very peculiar about the 'Victorian' era. Since about 1910, its values and practices have been subjected to an increasing barrage of criticism denouncing them as alien to the modern world and about as comprehensible as the culture of a wholly different civilisation. The defining characteristics were, it was said, a moral rigidity about sex itself, and sexuality in general. A fanatical prudery, satirised in the figure of Mrs Grundy, reigned supreme. This moralism and hostility to sensuality were particularly evident in attitudes to language and art, which were purged and purged again of all hint of sexual content. Museums put fig leaves on Classical nude statuary, Wedgwood put drapery over the nude figures on his pottery, while Dr Bowdler cleaned up Roman and Greek classics, along with Chaucer, Shakespeare and the Bible.

LRB 24 November 1994 | PDF Download