ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output The wrist, the neck, and the waist : articulations of female sexuality in mid-nineteenth century culture https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40228/ Version: Public Version Citation: Bazell, Beatrice Alexandra (2016) The wrist, the neck, and the waist : articulations of female sexuality in mid-nineteenth century cul- ture. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email The Wrist, the Neck, and the Waist: Articulations of Female Sexuality in Mid-Nineteenth Century Culture Beatrice Alexandra Bazell Birkbeck College, University of London PhD January 2016 2 Author’s Declaration I, Beatrice Bazell, declare that this thesis is entirely my own work. Signed: Date: 3 Abstract This thesis explores how mid-Victorian representations of the wrist, neck, and waist can be read as expressive of female sexuality. I read the appearance of these pieces of the body for their potential to contradict, challenge, or elude ideologies of nineteenth-century sexual regulation and control of women. In studying how desire could be displaced to portions of the body whose display was sanctioned, I draw together two key mid-Victorian preoccupations: the visibility of female sexuality and the subjectivity of artistic consumption. Successive chapters focus on different art forms between the 1850s and the 1870s, including some of the most popular works of the period, alongside critical and social perspectives on the era. I examine how concepts of agency of expression and interpretation negotiate with the strictures, social and physical, that shaped and curated the display of the female body. In doing so, I perform readings of poetry, painting, illustration, photography, art criticism, fashion journalism, and novels. The first chapter examines the representation of the neck in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and Other Poems, both in the titular poem and illustrations by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I interpret the neck as a spatially and sensually disruptive element of these works, which can facilitate a subjective physical experience of art by the consumer. In the second chapter I scrutinise the appearance of the waist in the photographs of Lady Clementina Hawarden, and in fashion criticism written by women. I analyse how women exercised creative agency by shaping representations of themselves, through the use of the corset and the camera. The final chapter looks at representations of the wrist and its coverings in George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. I read the wrist’s erotic significance in these novels, not as a space of subjugation or repression, but as one of sensual agency. 4 Table of Contents Abstract 3 List of Illustrations 5 List of Abbreviations 6 Acknowledgements 7 Introduction: Girls of the Period 8 Bodies in Pieces, Bodies in Public 10 Necks, Waists and Wrists 15 Chapter One: Neck 18 Imagining, and Imaging, the Body 20 ‘Goblin Market’: Spatial Interpretations and Suspect Pleasures 25 Goblin Publishing, or, How to Read Books, Periodicals, Pictures and Penitent Women 34 Frontispiece: ‘Buy from us with a Golden Curl’ 43 Title Page: ‘Golden head by Golden Head’ 46 Highgate Penitentiary: ‘Desecrated Doves’, Sisters, and the Apple of Knowledge 49 Bocca Baciata 54 Conclusion: the Nearness of the Neck 61 Chapter Two: Waist 64 Staging Perspective, Shaping the Female Form 67 Photography in 1863: Fine Art, or Machinery? 72 Feminising Perspective 76 The Artist and the Archive 79 Constructing Femininity: The Corseted Waist 84 Dressing as an Art: Authorship and Aesthetic Subjectivity 91 Conclusion: Corset Controversies and the Conversazione 98 Chapter Three: Wrist 102 ‘Unspeakable suggestions of tenderness’: the Wrist and its Symbolism 105 Middlemarch and the Aesthetics of Pleasure 110 Sleeves, Sexuality, and Style 115 The Turning Wrist and the Turning Body 119 Daniel Deronda: ‘Telegraphing’ sexuality through turquoises 124 Bracelets and Hand-cuffs: Sexuality and the Subjugation of the Wrist 133 Conclusion: Individuating the Wrist 137 Conclusion: Refashioning, Reframing, and Reconsidering Sexuality 141 Bibliography 146 5 List of Illustrations Fig. 1, ‘The Venus of Milo; or, Girls of Two Different Periods’, Punch, 8th January 1870. ........................... 8 Fig. 2, Title page to Goblin Market and Other Poems, ‘Golden head by golden head’, designed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, engraved by William James Linton, 1861-2, 132 x 96 mm, London Library Collection, The Database of Mid-Victorian Wood-Engraved Illustration <http://www.dmvi.cf.ac.uk/imageDetail.asp?illus=GM002> [accessed 7 December 2015]. ..................... 19 Fig. 3, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Golden head by golden head’, design for title page of Goblin Market and Other Poems, pen and ink, 6.5 x 8.5 cm, 1861, courtesy of the Rossetti Archive http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s143.rap.html [accessed 7 December 2015]. ..................................... 39 Fig. 4, Binding for Goblin Market and Other Poems (2nd edition), gold-blocked design on cloth boards,171 x 133 mm, 1865, photographed by Simon Cooke for The Victorian Web <http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/books/34.html> [accessed 7 December 2015]. ..................... 41 Fig. 5, ‘Buy from us with a golden curl’, frontispiece to Goblin Market and Other Poems, designed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, engraved by Charles J. Faulkner, 1861-2, courtesy of the Rossetti Archive http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs.sa74.s143.rap.html [accessed 7 December 2015]. .............................. 45 Fig. 6, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Bocca Baciata, oil on panel, 321 x 270 mm, 1859, Museum of Fine Art, Boston. ......................................................................................................................................................................... 55 Fig. 7, Lady Clementina Hawarden, D335, albumen print, 93 x 81mm, c. 1861, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ...................................................................................................................................................... 64 Fig. 8, Lady Clementina Hawarden D347, albumen print, 102 x 164 mm, c. 1861-2. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ......................................................................................................................................... 70 Fig. 9, Lady Clementina Hawarden, D292, albumen print, 115 x 90 mm, c. 1859-64. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ......................................................................................................................................... 76 Fig. 10, Lady Clementina Hawarden, D574, albumen print, 150 x 120 mm, c. 1862-3. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ......................................................................................................................................... 81 Fig. 11, Lady Clementina Hawarden, D562, albumen print, 154 x 129 mm, c. 1862-3. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ......................................................................................................................................... 88 Fig. 12, Illustration of a transmission sphygmograph from Étienne-Jules Marey’s La Circulation du Sang (Paris: Masson, 1861). Image courtesy of the Wellcome Library. .................................................................... 107 6 List of Abbreviations DFA Mary Merrifield – Dress as a Fine Art DD George Eliot – Daniel Deronda EDM Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine EWJ English Woman’s Journal GM Christina Rossetti – ‘Goblin Market’ MAD Elizabeth Eastlake – Music and the Art of Dress MF George Eliot – The Mill on the Floss MM George Eliot – Middlemarch P Elizabeth Eastlake – ‘Photography’ 7 Acknowledgements My thanks go foremost to Professor Hilary Fraser, my supervisor. Without her knowledge, kindness, patience, and elegance of mind this thesis could not have taken shape. Birkbeck’s School of Arts has provided unwavering support and stimulation, and their financial assistance made this project possible. Particular thanks go to the members of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, a scholarly community whose generosity and diversity constantly inspired me. Emma Curry, Belle Stennett, Bianca Leggett, Ben Winyard, Helen Goodman, Becky Tomlin, Catrin Griffiths, Grace Halden, Hannah Lewis-Bill and David Gillott have all been true comrades in arms. Heather Tilley, Nicola Bown, Louise Owen, Roger Luckhurst, and Virginia Dodier provided moments of intellectual clarity. Lindsay Smith and Karen Schaller gave me vital encouragement in the early stages of this project, and were inspiring examples of generosity and scholarship. Amy, Bridie, Fi, Georgie, and Jez consoled me and cheered me on when it seemed I could never achieve this goal, administering copious amounts of food and drink and laughter and love. My beloved parents, Barnaby and Felicity, and my wonderful sister Clemmie showed an unwavering belief in me and my project, and gave me unstinting love and support. My great-aunt and uncle, Jenny and David, were lavish with encouragement and with books. My grandmothers, Anne and Kathleen, both fostered a love of the arts and literature in me, a legacy I hope I will never squander. 8 Introduction: Girls of the Period On January 8th 1870 a cartoon appeared in Punch, entitled ‘The Venus of Milo,