The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd, by Peter Gay - Pl Johnson, Commentary Magaze

Contents:

• THE BOURGEOIS EXPERIENCE: VICTORIA TO FRD, BY PETER GAY
• PETER GAY, THE BOURGEOIS EXPERIENCE, VICTORIA TO FRD, VOL. II : THE TENR PASSN, OXFORD-NEW YORK, OXFORD UNIVERSY PRS, 1986, 490 P.

THE BOURGEOIS EXPERIENCE: VICTORIA TO FRD, BY PETER GAY

The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd Volume 1: Edutn of the Sens: 9780195033526: Gay, Peter: Books. Edutn of the Sens, the first book of Peter Gay's projected multi-volume study of the European and Amerin middle class om the 1820s to the outbreak of World War I, re-exam the sexual behavr and attus of Victorians.

Same go for at least one of the reviews seri by Peter Gay chronicl the "Bourgeois Century", roughly 1820 to the first world war. Gay's approach is anchored by a mment to Frdian theory and a cross-cultural approach that tak Brish, French, German and Amerin culture wh equal scholarship is reful and nuanced.

That is not to say that Gay foc exclively on the experience of men, far om . Gay is reful to expla the background of the neteenth century: i.

PETER GAY, THE BOURGEOIS EXPERIENCE, VICTORIA TO FRD, VOL. II : THE TENR PASSN, OXFORD-NEW YORK, OXFORD UNIVERSY PRS, 1986, 490 P.

Gay her experience to monstrate that the sex life of the Victorian was more plited then prev scholars thought (this is the overridg theme of all of his work this area) march through Bourgeois attus towards sex wh marriage (i. By Peter Gay. Peter Gay is an amb and unually wi-rangg historian of culture, and no one n fail to admire the dtry wh which he seeks knowledge and his zt munitg .

”1 Profsor Gay has an engagg manner and a sharp eye for a tellg quotatn and a choice example. What she was not (as Gay claims) was a bourgeoise: no bourgeoise ever ate breakfast off solid ’s e of Frd also seems to me misleadg.

Then, due urse, was seismic; but is largely irrelevant terms of Gay’s perd. Gay appears to be a more or ls orthodox Frdian, and that is a disadvantage to a historian now that most of have e to see Frd not as a scientist but as an imagative wrer, if an origal and illumatg one.

Gay is not so foolish as to buy the full psychobgraphy and psychohistory package, but I shudr when he tells his purpose is “to tegrate psychoanalysis wh history.

Gay, ed, is obssed wh Frd, who pops up his text persistently and ngoly.

Th, discsg Mary Wood-Allen’s book on what to tell children about sex, Gay nnot help notg: “Sigmund Frd tensely disliked this kd of equivotn. Gladstone had eight children fourteen years, Gay feels bound to add: “The Frds had six children eight years. ”_____________But a more fundamental objectn to Gay’s amework is his e of the word “bourgeois” to characterize his perd.

Gay himself adms and dismiss at length problems of fn, ncedg that some historians argue that the realy of bourgeois power the 19th century has been much exaggerated.

The Atrian empire was ls homogeneo, but all sentials urt and aristocracy retaed their power until the Hapsburgs left their throne: bourgeois polics was for lol and ocsnally regnal was a more plex se.

Gay’s notn of the “bourgeois century” do not f the facts of 19th-century Bra. Gay quot Hee as an exriator of bourgeois cultural valu.

_____________In short, the amework of Gay’s book lacks accurate fn and, above all, chronologil precisn. Gay’s method of wrg history mak large claims.

Gay follows this unsatisfactory method. I strs the fects of Gay’s methodology bee the taxonomy and prentatn of evince are even more cril than ual when the subject is as elive as sexual behavr. Gay’s book suggts that is not possible, at any rate at prent, to characterize 19th-century sexualy wh any precisn, and certaly not to give a “bourgeois” label.

Gay’s material shows there are exceptns to any and all generalizatns. And, pace Peter Gay, that is about the only generalizatn is safe to make. No ls revisnist than he was his first volume, Gay argu here that the Victorians were able not only to enjoy their sexualy but to know love s most exalted sense.

Gay lv to a huge body of material, om philosophil treatis to medil texts, om letters and diari to works of fictn. The book is replete wh fascatg sights to the liv and works of dividual Victorians, Dickens, Stendhal, Wagner, Osr Wil, Beatrice Potter and Sydney Webb, among them, and his discsns range om the "disvery" of homosexualy to the ways love was diverted or disguised mic and relignVols. Peter Gay.

95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-393-03813-2Gay believ that the Victorian bourgeoisie, and 19th-century Europe's middle class generally, were much more trospective and prone to self-exploratn than is monly assumed.