‘Such gaudy tulips raised from dung’: Cosmetics, Disease and Morality in Jonathan Swift's Dressing‐Room Poetry

Aske, Katherine

Abstract

While enabling women to embody fashionable trends and the idealised beauty of the period, cosmetics also offered a disguise, not only for ugly and ageing faces but for disease also. Taking examples from advertisements, cosmetic commentaries and Jonathan Swift's dressing-room poetry, this article demonstrates that, in the eighteenth century, cosmetics, fashion and disease are intimately linked to beauty and issues of morality by cultural factors.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 20, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Nov 7, 2017
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Deposit Date: Jan 24, 2024
• Print ISSN: 1754-0194
• Electronic ISSN: 1754-0208
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 503-517
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12509
• Keywords: Jonathan Swift, advertisement, women, prostitution, beauty, cosmetics, fashion, body, morality, disease
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/3492118