1. ‘Homosexual’ is, of course, an anachronistic term, since it entered the language only in the late nineteenth century, and carried with it psychological, medical and moral connotations which are quite different from those which obtained in the late seventeenth century. There is, however, no simple seventeenth-century vocabulary which could be used instead, and one of the aims of this essay is to illustrate the conceptual complexity of this subject in Marvell's period. While it would be a serious distortion to use ‘homosexual’ as a noun in this context, I see no alternative to ‘homosexual’ and ‘homoerotic’ as adjectives, if cumbersome periphrases are to be avoided. The distinction between those two words is not exact, but I would tend to use ‘homoerotic’ to describe feelings of sexual desire for, or erotic pleasure in the contemplation of, other men (and hence to describe texts which articulate or invite such feelings); and to reserve ‘homosexual’ for physical sexual contact between men. The two terms would thus distinguish between longing and looking on the one hand, and possessing and acting on the other. However, this is not offered as a definitive distinction, merely as a convenience for the present discussion. ‘Sodomy’ was a Restoration word, but its signification was at once too limited (to one particular act) and too vague (as a marker of moral and social deviance) to be usable in modern critical prose. And while I am being defensive about my vocabulary, I should say that ‘sexuality’ is, of course, a disputed term, and writers including Michel Foucault have questioned whether it is possible to study ‘sexuality’ without attending to the ways in which various sexual desires and practices have been made into the subjects of discourse in different periods. I hope that the present essay will illustrate some of the understandings of ‘sexuality’ which were possible in Restoration England.
2. Marvell , Andrew . 1971 .The Rehearsal Transpros'd and The Rehearsal Transpros'd The Second Part5 – 6 . Oxford edited by D.I.B. Smith, pp.
3. Bishop Parker's History of his own Time274 translated by Thomas Newlin (London, 1727), pp. 332, 348. The original Latin text says of Marvell's youthful wickedness: ‘Hie ut inhonestius ab adolescentia vixerat’, but the translation actually seems closer to the variant version of the passage added in manuscript (perhaps from Parker's papers) in one of the Bodleian Library's copies: ‘Hie ut omni Vitae Turpitudine ab Adolescentia vixerat’ (Reverendi Admodum in Christo Patris, Samuelis Parkeri…De Rebus sui Temporis Commentariorum Libri Quatuor(London, 1726), p.; Bodleian Library, Oxford, 4° Rawl 325).