title: Blake, Sexuality and Bourgeois Politeness (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism)
author:  Susan Matthews 
description: "Matthews' book is a fierce, fascinating, and passionate response to the last thirty years in Blake studies; it revisits the debates initiated by the feminists to claim that Blake's opinion of both gender and sexuality can only make sense if firmly placed into their historical linguistic context. Matthews successfully carves out a new area of investigation and convincingly presents a new Blake." <br />Sibylle Erle, Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly
zlib_text: ![](Image00000.jpg)
  
  
  #  Women and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England
  
  This first in-depth study of women’s politeness examines the complex
  relationship individuals had with the discursive ideals of polite femininity.
  Contextualising women’s autobiographical writings (journals and letters) with
  a wide range of eighteenth-century printed didactic material, it analyses the
  tensions between politeness discourse which aimed to regulate acceptable
  feminine identities and women’s possibilities to resist this disciplinary
  regime. Ylivuori focuses on the central role the female body played as both
  the means through which individuals actively fashioned themselves as polite
  and feminine, and the supposedly truthful expression of their inner status of
  polite femininity.
  
  **Soile Ylivuori** is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at Queen Mary,
  University of London.
  
  
  Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies
  
  The long eighteenth century sits as a pivotal point betwe