The Erotic Imagination

Taking France as a particularly important site, this work argues that the notion of the "erotic" (the sexual rather than the amorous) began to emerge in the mid-18th century, leading to the pathologization of sexual life which still pervades contemporary literature.

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Vernon Rosario's work argues that the contemporary notion of the "erotic" (connoting the sexual rather than the amorous) began to emerge in the late-18th century, and was especially influenced by popular and professional discourses about sexual health. He takes France from the mid-18th century to 1914 as a particularly important site in the emerging pathologization of sexual life. Rosario proceeds from the premise that medical thinking about sexuality and the perversions cannot be separated from contemporary literary treatments of the subject, and that the primary source of knowledge about sexuality for both was the confessional case study.