Visions of Sodom : religion, homoerotic desire, and the end of the world in England, c. 1550-1850 /

Visions of Sodom : religion, homoerotic desire, and the end of the world in England, c. 1550-1850 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Cocks, Harry, 1968- author.
Imprint:	Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. ©2017
Description:	viii, 333 pages ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Gay erotic literature -- History and criticism. Christian ethics -- England. End of the world. Christian ethics. End of the world. Gay erotic literature. Religion. Sodom (Extinct city) -- Religion. England. Israel -- Sodom (Extinct city) Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Format:	Print Book
Local Note:	University of Chicago Library's UCPress copy 2 has original dust jacket.
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11023787

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780226438665 022643866X 9780226438832
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	The book of Genesis records the fiery fate of Sodom and Gomorrah a storm of fire and brimstone was sent from heaven and, for the wickedness of the people, God destroyed the cities "and all the plains, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." According to many Protestant theologians and commentators, one of the Sodomites' many crimes was homoerotic excess. H. G. Cocks examines the many different ways in which the story of Sodom's destruction provided a template for understanding homoerotic desire and behaviour in Britain between the Reformation and the nineteenth century. Sodom was not only a marker of sexual sins, but also the epitome of false usually Catholic religion, an exemplar of the iniquitous city, a foreshadowing of the world's fiery end, an epitome of divine and earthly punishment, and an actual place that could be searched for and discovered. He investigates each of these ways of reading Sodom's annihilation in the three hundred years after the Reformation. The centrality of scripture to Protestant faith meant that Sodom's demise provided a powerful origin myth of homoerotic desire and sexual excess, one that persisted across centuries, and retains an apocalyptic echo in the religious fundamentalism of our own time.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Roman Sodom
2. City of Destruction
3. The End of the World
4. Laws
5. Histories
6. Lust and Morality in the (Long) Eighteenth Century
7. The Discovery of Sodom, 1851
Conclusion: The End
Notes
Bibliography
Index