CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXXI
Love the nucleus of belletristic literature — Necessity for the erotic element in polite literature — Remarks of the æsthetic Konrad Lange on this subject — Sexual topics in belles-lettres are principally problem-literature — As a mirror of the times — Description of puberty in our poems — The demi-vierge type — The “Vera” books — Misogyny and ascetic romances, and rejoinders — The “intimacy” and free love in literature — Irregular sexual intercourse in literature — Marriage in literature — Novels of divorce — The emancipated woman in belletristic literature — Novels dealing with “fallen woman” — Precursors and imitations of the “Diary of a Lost Woman” — Belletristic descriptions of brothel life, and of the life of prostitution — Alcoholism and syphilis in literature — Sexual perversities in belletristic literature — Larocque’s “Voluptueuses,” etc. — Homosexuality and bisexuality in belles-lettres — Masochism and sadism — Psychological love romances — More earnest and more profound grasp of sexual questions displayed in modern belletristic literature.