ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the case that sexuality, in the early nineteenth century, was part of a wider socio-political debate addressed by both conservative and liberal intellectuals. It describes how male idealisation imposes on and limits women's sexual identity. The book maintains that Keats's poems partake in this radical-conservative discourse of sexuality by deploying the figure of the masturbating girl who consciously decides to experience the pleasures of desire in the realms of the mind. Keats's poems and especially his 1820 volume incorporate not only a 'mental', stylistic sort of masturbation but also a direct imagery of the act. If one considers the dire consequences associated with sexual suppression in the poetry, the poems do seem to stand as a medium through which Keats voices his criticism against the traditionalist approach towards women and sex.
