Title: "Swords in myrtle dress'd"
First published: 1998
Description: Part 1 offers readings of homosexuality in early homophobic tracts, in Grub Street productions lampooning a preferment dispute involving the bishop of London, in the London newspapers, in political pamphlets attacking Lord Hervey, and in a casebook by a clergyman defending himself against the charge of sodomizing one of his own parishioners.

Part 2 offers readings of homoeroticism in Akenside's The Pleasures of Imagination and his Odes, where homosexuality manifests itself indirectly, through elision and through Akenside's own revision of his most homoerotic passages. Finally, Part 3 returns to read homosexuality in political life, but later in the century, when the idea is exploited by Wilkes and Churchill, with some very surprising results, in their campaign against George III and his prime minister, the earl of Bute.
Subjects: History, Rhetoric, English literature, Politics and literature, Poetics, History and criticism, English language, Homosexuality and literature, Gay men in literature, Sex in literature, English literature, history and criticism, 18th century, English language, rhetoric
Places: Great Britain
Time periods: 18th century
LC classification: PR448.H65 R69 1998