Explore what sent hearts a flutter through the centuries in this compilation of erotic cultural and literary history.
Dictionary of Erotic Literature
Representing cultures around the world and spanning from ancient times to the twentieth century, this A-to-Z guide explores one of the most universal and enduring themes in literature. Entries range from Ovid’s Ars amatoria, second-century Gnosticism, and ninth-century Arabian poets, all the way up to the explicit novels published in Paris in the 1960s.
As author Harry E. Wedeck explains in his introduction, a culture’s artistic and literary depictions of eroticism reveal a great deal about their way of life. In Dictionary of Erotic Literature, Wedeck draws on this endlessly vast topic to present an illustrative sampling of authors, written works, and terminology that will be of value to any student of literature or cultural history.
Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs
From absinthe, almond soup, and Albertus Magnus to yarrow, yohimbine, and Émile Zola,
this authoritative reference volume covers knowledge of aphrodisiacs spanning centuries and drawn from literature, spirituality, and ancient science. Entries include edible substances believed to enhance sexual performance, gemstones thought to possess amorous charms, gods and goddesses of love from various myths, and historic figures who contributed to studies and thought on aphrodisiacs.
This dictionary reveals many intriguing ways for partners to enrich their relationships, including recipes to stimulate the gourmet lover using the many ingredients described in the book.
Love Potions Through the Ages
This survey explores the evolution of love potion practices in societies over the centuries and across the world. Separate chapters focus on ancient Greece, Rome, India, and the Orient, as well as the Middle Ages and modern times.
Wedeck relays the spiritual aspects of these concoctions as well as historical anecdotes about them. Recipes are also included, though Wedeck cautions that they are exclusively for academic purposes and not intended for personal use.
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THE COMPENDIUM OF EROTICA
Dictionary of Erotic Literature, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, and
Love Potions Through the Ages
Harry Wedeck
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Dictionary of Erotic Literature
Harry E. Wedeck
Introduction
The term erotic is here taken in its most comprehensive sense to include all normal and perverted sexual and amatory phenomena depicted in the field of literature.
Erotic thoughts, poetry, dramatic presentations, sculptural and pictorial designs, and literary productions of all types are essential concomitants of human nature. The emphasis placed on the erotic motif, however, is conditioned by the particular society. In ancient Greece, for instance, the primary concept that pervaded the polis was the generative force, the original and initial basis of cosmic existence. Festivals, dress, talk, statuary, religious rites and ceremonials were all dedicated, whether with intended consciousness or not, to the generative capacities. The human body was the criterion of the ideal, and the supreme deities, anthropomorphically materialized, symbolized this cosmic principle. Erotic themes and activities were thus taken in their stride pari passuwith other functional organic operations.
The exultant glorification of procreative excitations and sexual functions, unrestrained, produced no sense of shame or offensiveness, no hint of aidos, because the generative concept was endemic, or rather pandemic, among the Greeks and not the exclusive preservation of a small ad hoc coterie, or vested in some supreme social or political body.
Erotic performances were not of course the sole human functions, but they were never branded as unique in themselves. In Aristophanes the gods are represented as performing functional acts not so much disrespectfully as anthropomor phically. And the spectators enjoyed these allusions to sexual and other functional matters not less, but not more, than their enjoyment of the multiple variations of the ordinary routine of living.
National and ethnic attitudes to erotic themes, in their respective ways, mirror the life of a particular age, not as the deliberate and ad hoc commercialized productions of current times do, but as the sifted, literate but still widely representative picture of human mores in a set framework.
This book, then, aims to present such various views, such ethnic criteria, by means of illustrative material drawn from sources disparate in time and circumstances, and ranging from early ages, in various geographical settings, down to modern days.
The erotic literary genre is of such vastness in bulk and of such variety that a totally exhaustive compilation on this subject would be beyond the scope of one inclusive volume. The present edition, therefore, proposes to touch upon the main titles in the current of amatory productions, particularly on those items that, in the process of time and by established literary criteria, have become ‘classics’: and wherever it is feasible, to illustrate peculiarities and trends in presentation by excerpts from such writings.
H. E. W.
A
A Ballad of Love
By Frederick Prokosch. An amatory novel depicting varieties of love.
Abandon
A teenage delinquent tale in a Chicago and New York atmosphere. By B. Von Soda. Published by Olympia Press, Paris.
Abelard, Peter
The fourteenth century scholastic philosopher is generally known for his relations with Héloïse, the niece of Canon Fulbert of Paris. Abelard, who was in holy orders, was castrated, while Héloïse entered a nunnery. In 1817 their ashes were brought to Paris and laid to rest in the Pére Lachaise Cemetery.
The amatory correspondence between the two lovers is extant, and reveals their intimate passions and their spiritual regrets.
Abelites
A sect that lived in North Africa, in the diocese of Hippo, where Augustine was Bishop. The Abelites restricted themselves to one wife, with whom they had no relations after marriage. They derived their name from the Biblical Abel.
Abington, Fanny
A notorious eighteenth century inmate of a London bordello. She was also a professional actress. Despite her harlotries, she lived to the age of eighty
four.
Abinhag
A Shunammite maid who was brought into clinical contiguity with King David in the hope that her person would induce ‘heat’ in the aged monarch.
The Biblical text appears in I Kings 1-4:
Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin; and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her be in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat …
And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not.
A medieval woodcut depicts the exhausted monarch in bed, while beside him stand Abinhag and attendants.
Abstemius, Laurentius
A sixteenth century humanist and poet. Author of Hecatomythium sive Centum Fabulae.Published in Venice, in 1495. Contain erotic themes.
Abu Temman
Arab poet of the ninth century. Author of erotic poetry.
Académie De Ces Dames Et De Ces Messieurs
An academy, founded in 1739, that was dedicated to the composition of erotic literature. Among the members was a certain Comtesse Verrue, known as La Dame de Volupté. The Academy came to an end in 1776.
Académie Des Pays-Bas: OU L’Ecole Des Voluptueux
A collection of lewd poems published in 1709.
A Caution Against Future Subscriptions For Prostitutes and Their Associates
With many Notes containing patriotic sentiments well sworthy of perusal by every true Briton. A pamphlet of 64 pages. Published in 1809.
Acerri, Antonio D’
Author of a lewd novel entitled King of the Earth. Published in Rome, in 1908.
Adam and Eve
An erotic novel, involving nymphomaniacs and perverted actresses. By Marcus Van Heller. Published by the Olympia Press, Paris.
Adamites
Members of a Gnostic cult that flourished in the second century A.D. Among other activities, the Adamites cultivated the primal Biblical nudity.
Address to a Mistress
A poem by the Greek poet Anacreon (c. 500 B.C.):
Because, forsooth, you’re young and fair, And fresher than the rose appear, Gray hairs you treat with scornful eye And leave me most unmannerly
Sweetheart, these ashes do contain Embers that strive to flame again. And Etna that on top has snow Feels warmth and constant fire below.
With roses white-haired lilies twine And in a glowing garland shine; They, locked in close embraces, lie And kiss and hug most decently.
Adeline, OU La Belle Strasbourgeoise, Sa Vie Privée Et L’Histoire De Ses Aventures Galantes
An erotic novel published in France in 1797.
Adelphus Muling, Johannes
Sixteenth century author of Margarita Facetiarum, in which the author attacks the lusts and morals of the clerics.
Admissarius
In vulgar Latin, a stallion. In ancient Rome, the guide to the lupanaria or public brothels.
Adonis
Shakespeare’s poem, Venus and Adonis, is both luscious in subject and tragic. The theme is erotic in a classical, mythological background: the content is pervaded by amorous intensity. Some of the more dominant episodes and depictions are: the arrest of Adonis by Venus, Mars’ captivity, a self-portrait of Venus, the solitary night, Adonis’ flight from Love to Death. The onset of passion is thus described:
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty— Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain— Love is a spirit all compact of fire— He sees her coming and begins to glow Even as a dying coal revives with wind— Her two blue windows faintly she upheaveth— Was melted like a vapor from her sight—
Adriaensen, Cornelius
A sixteenth century Dutchman, founder of a Disciplina Gynopygica, that attracted women and girls who underwent flagellation to sate the director’s perverted lusts.
Adulterous Aides
Maidservants and chambermaids and nurses were traditionally, in ancient times, the go-betweens in adulterous machinations. They looked after the receipt of love notes, presents, fruits, especially apples. They produced ladders to help the amorous intruder.
Such situations are described in the Greek sketches of Alciphron and Lucian: later on, among the Romans, in the plays of the comic writer Plautus and in the arch poet of love, Publius Ovidius Naso.
Adulterous Wives
A description of the lewdness of Roman matrons in the days of the Roman satirist Decimus Junius Juvenalis (55-135 A.D.):
’Tis night; yet hope no slumbers with your wife; The nuptial bed is still the scene of strife: There lives the keen debate, the clamorous brawl, And quiet “never comes, that comes at all.” Fierce as a tigress plundered of her young, Rage fires her breast, and loosens all her tongue, When, conscious of her guilt, she feigns to groan, And chides your loose amours, to hide her own; Storms at the scandal of your baser flames, And weeps her injuries from imagined names, With tears that, marshalled, at their station stand, And flow impassioned, as she gives command. You think those showers her true affection prove, And deem yourself—so happy in her love! With fond caresses strive her heart to cheer, And from her eyelids suck the starting tear: —But could you now examine the scrutore Of this most loving, this most jealous whore, What amorous lays, what letters would you see, Proofs, damning proofs, of her sincerity!
But these are doubtful—Put a clearer case: Suppose her taken in a loose embrace, A slave’s or knight’s. Now, my Quintilian, come, And fashion an excuse. What! you are dumb? Then, let the lady speak. “Was’t not agreed The man might please himself?” It was; proceed. “Then, so may I”—O, Jupiter! “No oath; Man is a general term, and takes in both.” When once surprised, the sex all shame forego; And more audacious, as more guilty, grow.
Adventatores Meretricum
A Latin expression signifying the customers of the harlots, in the Roman lupanaria.
Advice On Marriage
To Chuse a Friend, but Never Marry is a cynical poem offering circumspect counsel in Ovidian style. The putative author is the poet and rake John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1648-1680). From Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive. Written by Mr. D’Urfey. 5 volumes. London, 1719.
There follow a few typical stanzas:
To all young Men that love to Wooe, To Kiss and Dance, and Tumble too; Draw near and Counsel take of me, Your faithful pilot I will be:
who you please, Joan, Kate, or Mary, But still this counsel with you carry,
Never marry.
not a Country Lady, she Knows not how to value thee; She hath no am’rous Passion, but What Tray, or Quando has for Slut: To Lick, to Whine, to Frisk, or Cover, She’ll suffer thee, or any other,
Thus to love her.
greasy painted Faces drest, With butter’d Hair, and fucus’d Breast; Tongues with Dissimulation tipt, Lips which a million have them sipp’d: There’s nothing got by such as these, But Achs in Shoulders, Pains in Knees
For your Fees.
In fine if thou delight’st to be,
Concern’d in Woman’s Company: Make it the Studies of thy Life, To find a Rich, young, handsome Wife:
That can with much discretion be Dear to her husband, kind to thee,
Secretly.
In such a Mistress, there’s the Bliss, Ten Thousand joys wrapt in a Kiss; And in th’ Embraces of her Wast, A Million more of Pleasures taste:
Who e’er would marry that could be Blessed with such Opportunity,
Never me.
Advice To Lovers
Ovid, the Roman poet, in his Art of Love, expounds the techniques of amatory approaches:
Before your youth with marriage is opprest, Make choice of one who suits your humor best; And such a damsel drops not from the sky; She must be sought for with a curious eye. The wary angler, in the winding brook, Knows what the fish, and where to bait his hook. The fowler and the huntsman know by name The certain haunts and harbor of their game. So must the lover beat the likeliest grounds; Th’assemblies where his quarry most abounds. Nor shall my novice wander far astray; These rules shall put him in the ready way. Thou shalt not sail around the continent, As far as Perseus, or as Paris went; For Rome alone affords thee such a store, As all the world can hardly shew thee more. The face of heav’n with fewer stars is crown’d, Than beauties in the Roman sphere are found.
Whether thy love is bent on blooming youth, On dawning sweetness, in unartful truth; Or courts the juicy joys of riper growth; Here mayst thou find thy full desires in both. Or if autumnal beauties please thy sight (An age that knows to give, and take delight;) Millions of matrons of the graver sort, In common prudence, will not balk the sport.
Advice to the Ladies of London in the Choice of Their Husbands
A poem in which cynical advice, on the style of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, is proferred to prospective wives. From the Roxburghe Ballads, a collection preserved in the British Museum:
of London, both wealthy and fair,
Whom every Town Fop is pursuing, Still of your Persons and Purses take care
The greatest deceit lies in wooing. From the first rank of the bonny brisk sparks,
Their Vices I here will discover,
Down to the basest mechanick Degree,
That so you may chuse out your Lover.
for the Courtier, look to his Estate,
Before he too far be proceeding; He of Court Favours and Places will prate,
And settlements make of his breeding; Nor wear the yoak with dull Country Clown,
Who, though they are fat in their Purses, Brush you with Brissles and, toping full Fowl,
Make Love to their Dogs and their Horses.
Nor is the Citizen acceptable: nor the Blockhead, nor the Clown, nor the spruce Officer, nor the Lawyer.
Fly, like the Plague, the huffing brave Boys,
That Court you with lying Bravadoes, Tyring your senses with Bombast and Noise,
And Stories brought from the Barbadoes. And be sure ever shun the Doctor, that Fool,
Who seeking to mend your Condition, Tickles your Pulse, and peeps in your Close-stool,
Then sets up for a famous Physitian.
not a Spark that has known the town,
Who makes it his Practice to Bully; You’d better take up with a country clown,
He’l make an officious cully.
with a word may his Passion appease
And make him a Cuckold at leasure, Give him but money to live at his ease,
You may follow Intregues at your Pleasure. Neither admire much a man that is wise
If e’re you intend to deceive him, He cunning plots and intreagues will devise
And trap you, e’re you shall perceive him; Therefore beware that he never disclose
Your tricks, if he do’s he will slight you; He’l keep a gay mistress under your nose
If it be but on purpose to spight you. But if you’d thrive, and grow wealthy apace,
Then marry a doting old sinner;
if you view there Old Time in his face,
You will by that bargain be winner. You may have lusty Gallants good store,
If you can produce but th’ Guinea,
And those young coxcombs your face will adore
If this don’t please, old Nick is in you.
Aelianus, Claudius
Greek historian of the third century A.D. Author of The Nature of Animals and Varia Historia, containing erotic tales.
Aeolus
A tragic drama by the Greek tragic poet Euripides (c. 485-c. 406 B.C.), in which the theme was the incestuous love of Canace for her brother Macareus.
Euripides was the first Greek dramatist to present theatrically the incestuous motif.
Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)
Greek tragic poet. In a fragment of the Laius, there is the story of King Laius and his passion for the boy Chrysippus. In the Myrmidons, the homosexual love of Achilles and Patroclus forms the motif.
Affair With Fotis
An episode in the remarkable picaresque novel entitled The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius (c. 123 A.D.-date of death uncertain). Lucius, the hero of the tale, is turned into an ass. Here he has an encounter with the maid Fotis:
Thus when I had well replenished my self with wine, and was now ready unto Venery not onely in minde but also in body, I removed my cloathes, and shewing to Fotis my great impatiencie I sayd, O my sweet heart take pitty upon me and helpe me, for as you see I am now prepared unto the battell, which you your selfe did appoint: for after that I felt the first Arrow of cruell Cupid within my breast, I bent my bow very strong, and now feare (because it is bended so hard) lest my string should breake: but that thou mayst the better please me, undresse thy haire and come and embrace mee lovingly: whereupon she made no long delay, but set aside all the meat and wine, and then she unapparelled her selfe, and unattyred her haire, presenting her amiable body unto me in the manner of faire Venus, when she goeth under the waves of the sea. Now (quoth shee) is come the houre of justing, now is come the time of warre, wherefore shew thy selfe like unto a man, for I will not retyre, I will not fly the field, see then thou bee valiant, see thou be couragious, since there is no time appointed when our
skirmish shall cease. In saying these words she came to me to bed, and embraced me sweetly, and so wee passed all the night in pastime and pleasure, and never slept until it was day: but wee would eftsoones refresh our wearinesse, and provoke our pleasure, and renew our venery by drinking of wine. In which sort we pleasantly passed away many other nights following.
Agathias of Myrina (sixth century A.D.)
Greek author of a collection of epigrams, many of them love poems.
Aggressive Counsel
The passage, virtually Advice to the Love-Sick, that follows, is taken from The Art of Love, the erotic vademecum written by the Roman poet Ovid for his sophisticated contemporaries:
T’enjoy the maid, will that thy suit advance? ’Tis a hard question, and a doubtful chance. One maid, corrupted, bawds the better for’t; Another for herself wou’d keep the sport. Thy bus’ness may be further’d or delay’d: But by my counsel, let alone the maid: Ev’n tho’ she shou’d consent to do the feat, The profit’s little, and the danger great. I will not lead thee through a rugged road; But where the way lies open, safe, and broad. Yet if thou find’st her very much thy friend, And her good face her diligence commend: Let the fair mistress have thy first embrace, And let the maid come after in her place. But this I will advise, and mark my words, For’tis the best advice my skill affords: If needs thou with the damsel wilt begin; Before th’ attempt is made, make sure to win: For then the secret better will be kept; And she can tell no tales when once she’s dipt.
’Tis for the fowler’s interest to beware, The bird intangled shou’d not scape the snare. The fish, once prick’d, avoids the bearded hook, And spoils the sport of all the neighb’ring brook. But if the wench be thine, she makes thy way; And, for thy sake, her mistress will betray; Tell all she knows, and all she hears her say. Keep well the counsel of thy faithful spy: So shalt thou learn whene’er she treads awry.
Aglae, An Idyll
An erotic fairy story, by Pallas. Published by the Erotika Biblion Society of London. Privately printed, n.d.
Agoranomoi
In ancient Athens, overseers of the market, the cleanliness of the streets, the bordellos and public prostitution.
Akhataymita
An erotic fertility festival in ancient Peru, characterized by great sexual and orgiastic displays.
Alciphron (second century A.D.)
A Greek philosopher. In imitation of the satirist Lucian, he produced a series of letters descriptive of the daily life of his time. One letter, by Glaucippe, contains a sketch of a girl in love. She will commit suicide, she threatens, unless she marries the young soldier who caught her eye. Her mother Charope, however, admonishes her and advises her not to be insane or to flout decency.
In another piece, there is an altercation between Gemellos, scorned, and the slave-girl Salakonis.
Again, Crito is told by Philumena that, if he is so much in love with her, he should pay his way.
Parope rebukes her husband Euthybolos for wandering off, leaving his wife and two children, Galene and Thalassion, for the sake of ‘that foreign woman.’ If he won’t mend his ways, she will be off to her father’s house.
A farm lad becomes enamoured of a slave-girl, marries her, and brings her home, to the chagrin and rage of his mother.
A diner-out tells the story of a husband’s cuckoldry and his wife’s solemn oath that the story about her is untrue. Trusting his wife’s plea, the husband abandons his jealousy.
In another letter, a picnic is described, in which the pampered young Athenian, Pamphilos, brings along a bevy of girls—Erato, Krumation, and Euepis—for his entertainment.
A mistress writes to her former lover, mentioning that she has seen his new wife, and describing her in bitter terms.
Fascinated by the glamor of town life, a wife leaves her farm, her husband, and the children.
Alera, Don Brennus
A pseudonym of the author of Memoirs of a Flagellant:published at the beginning of this century.
Alexander The Great (356-323 B.C.)
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