Metropolitan Modernism, Venereal Disease and Social Hygiene, 1899-1945

The beginning of the twentieth century saw a rapid increase in the transmission rates of venereal disease, in Britain and across the globe. Growing public awareness and the outbreak of war in 1914 meant that the mass-mobilisation of soldiers to and from the continent created an atmosphere of widespread "sex panic" that associated the disease with "moral" infection, particularly in metropolitan areas. My research proposes that the venereal disease epidemic of the early twentieth century was a significant medical and cultural event of particular concern to literary modernists in the imperial metropolis, and that literary modernism itself contributed to emerging ideas of sexual health by reflecting contemporary anxieties of illness and contamination. My research will show how the eugenic language of social hygiene influenced modernist aesthetic strategies, and will ultimately improve our understanding of the role played by diverse cultural forms in the dissemination of contemporary public health material.