Dangerous Women, Libertine Epicures, and the Rise of Sensibility, 1670-1730

Abstract

Laura Linker. Dangerous Women, Epicures, and the Rise of Sensibility, 1670-1730. Burlington: Ashgate, 2011. 174 pp. $99.95.Laura Linker's book Dangerous Women, Epicures, and the Rise of Sensibility, 1670-1730 (2011) begins with a deceptively simple question: What is the female libertine? (1). In her answer, Linker notes the Oxford English Dictionary's assertion that the term libertine is rarely applied to a woman (1). Despite the OED's pronouncement, scholars such as Warren Chernaik, James Turner, and Harold Weber, among others, have shed new light on the way in which women participated and shaped libertine culture, primarily during the Restoration period in England. Yet as Linker notes, there has never been a study devoted solely to female libertines, and Linker's work is intended to fill that gap. She argues that libertinism and sensibility, instead of being separate literary traditions, evolved together and share an emphasis on rebellious sexuality (5). Furthermore, she argues that while scholars have often argued that Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) molded writers' portrayals of female libertines, these scholars have overlooked the crucial role played by the philosopher Lucretius, whose espousal of Epicurean philosophy was an important source for the writers Linker studies in her book. Ultimately, Linker traces the various transformations of the female libertine in literary portrayals from the late Stuart to the Early Georgian periods and demonstrates the considerable fascination the figure of the female libertine exerted over both readers and writers.Linker notes that the female libertine is not the product of a single historical age, and scholars can find examples of her in works from Homer to Shakespeare. She argues, however, the female libertine achieved a new kind of prominence in Restoration England as Charles II made actual female libertines members of his court. These female libertines-including Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland; Nell Gwyn; Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth; and Hortense Mancini, the Duchess of Mazarin-served as Charles II 's mistresses and exercised considerable influence over him. As Linker argues in chapter 1 of her book, Dryden's Marriage a-la-Mode (1671) is a satire of Charles II and his court mistresses, in which the playwright contends that political and sexual stability can be achieved only by espousing the Epicurean ideal of pleasure articulated in Lucretius's De rerum natura. In following the twists and turns of Marriage a-la-Mode's complicated plot, Linker sometimes loses sight of the female libertines who are at the core of the argument. She nonetheless provides a sophisticated reading of this text, which allows us to see the full range of Dryden's ambivalence toward libertinism.As Linker shows in her second chapter, Aphra Behn responded to such negative portrayals of female libertines by creating new types in of her works, The Lucky Chance (1686) and The History of the Nun (1689). Inspired by the French culture of sensibilite that developed around the infamous love story of Heloise and Abelard, Behn's libertines are women in distress who physically manifest their psychic turmoil. Again, we see both the influence of Epicurean ideals in Behn's portrayal of Julia in The Lucky Chance and the influence of Charles II 's mistresses in Behn's portrayal of Isabella, who is modeled after the Duchess of Mazarin, in The History of the Nun.Linker next turns to the figure of the Humane Libertine in chapter 3. In Catharine Trotter's little-studied popular novella Olinda's Adventures (1693) and in her less popular play Love at a Loss (1700), the female libertines are characterized in large part by the desire they exhibit for a sympathetic community to understand and accept them. These libertines, according to Linker, are largely caught between two paradigms, or social worlds (76); they grapple with the question of whether to pursue their libertine desires and become socially ostracized or to enter loveless but socially approved marriages. …