Thomas Nashe, Choice of Valentines

Claire Bryony Loffman (Canterbury Christ Church University)

Ed. by J A Roe, University of York
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 1592 - c. 1598

Places

England (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

Passed over in the Penguin Classics’s introduction to his works as Nashe’s “dirty” poem (Nashe 1985 30), the Choice of Valentines, often referred to as “Nashe’s Dildo” is of considerable interest to any student of the history of sexuality and erotic writing in English. It contains the first known use of the word “dildo” to mean “an artificial penis” (OED misdates the Choice to 1601, but the poem was in circulation before John Florio’s 1598 World of Wordes) and provides the first detailed description in English of a dildo. Here it is a long, broad, hollow glass cylinder “almost tuo handfulls highe” covered with white silk or velvet and filled with warm milk or water with a hole at …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1791 words

Citation: Loffman, Claire Bryony. "Choice of Valentines". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 September 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35517, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Save this article