the last days of sodom and gomorrah erotica

In England, after the Reformation, the church lost much of its power to the Crown which licensed every published book and prosecutions of books for their erotic content were rare. Erotic literature was often censored and destroyed on the grounds of obscenity and was mainly criticised by the ecclesiastical courts. Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353) depicted the lechery of monks and the seclusion of nuns and was banned in many countries. That is not to imply that people never had a problem with erotica. During the Renaissance, erotic poetry, such as Shakespeare’s sonnets, often circulated as a manuscript and therefore had a limited readership. Early erotic poetry in Ancient Greece by Sappho of Lesbos, or Ovid for example, was only read by a select few. Erotic literature is loosely defined as fictional and factual accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually, indicating why the genre has historically been so controversial.Įrotic literature was not considered a huge problem before the invention of the printing press because, due to the costs of producing individual manuscripts, there was a limited readership. It covers a range of taboo subjects such as sadomasochism, homosexuality and prostitution whilst often being satirical and socially critical. Erotic literature comes in many forms, including novels, poems, memoirs, such as Casanova’s Histoire de ma Vie (1822) and manuals, such as the Kama Sutra. Part the Fourth A History of Erotic LiteratureĮrotic literature today is associated with Fifty Shades of Grey or internet pornography, but erotic fiction has existed for centuries. The express permission of the publisher in writingīritish Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataĪ catalogue record for this book is available from

The last days of sodom and gomorrah erotica