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Article: What? How? Female-female desire in Sidney's new arcadia.
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- September 22, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Wayne State University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Desiring she knew not what, nor how, if she knew what . . .(1)
In early modern EnglaNd (more particularly, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries) how likely was it for a close friendship between young women to become active sexually? Did female friendships flourish because it was confidently and correctly understood that they would no' become sexual? Or did they flourish despite a fear that they might become sexual? Or did female friendship flourish because the prospect of a friendship's turning sexual was not frightening, either because female-female sex was acceptable (at least in certain limited settings) or because it was felt to be merely a ...