Keats, Modesty and Masturbation

Through close readings of Isabella; or the Pot of Basil, The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia and ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci,’ Rachel Schulkins offers a re-evaluation of Keats and his poetry designed to show that Keats’s sexual imagery counters conservative morality by encoding taboo desires and the pleasures of masturbation. Her book reveals how Keats’s sexual politics and his refutation of the asexual female model fed the design, plot and vocabulary of his romances.