Female Sexual Transgression in the Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel: Literature and its Medical Background
Female Sexual Transgression in the Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel: Literature and its Medical Background

Summary/Abstract: Outlining the prevalent medical knowledge of sexuality in the nineteenth century and closely reading three literary texts dealing with this taboo topic (Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane), the article analyses connections between literature and science in the era of realist novel. Specifically, my article is arguing that medical literature of the nineteenth century allows to see the adulterous behavior of women in the so-called novel of female adultery as textbook case studies of female sexuality.

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