Synopses & Reviews
From ancient Egypt through the nineteenth century, Sexual Personae explores the provocative connections between art and pagan ritual; between Emily Dickinson and the Marquis de Sade; between Lord Byron and Elvis Presley. It ultimately challenges the cultural assumptions of both conservatives and traditional liberals. 47 photographs.
Review
"This hefty volume is composed of cavalry charges: 'Sex and Violence,' 'Pagan Beauty,' 'Shakespeare and Dionysus,' 'Amherst's Madame de Sade.' Paglia's outrageous reinterpretations of Western art and literature are intended to shock, and she occasionally goes out of her way to attack conventional feminism and liberalism. But she is, above all, a critic of personality, and she has no interest in scholarly decorum. What is really valuable here is Paglia's wide range of interests. She draws together art history, psychoanalytic theory, anthropology, philosophy, pop culture, and anything else that helps her illuminate her response to literature. The comparative study of Lord Byron and Elvis Presley is worth the price of the book." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
"Heavily influenced by Nietzsche, {Paglia's} style is marked by angry exhilaration, brittle epigrams and acid paradoxes, a combination that bullies rather than persuades. The posturing is hard to take seriously, indeed may well be a literary game, a tongue-in-cheek performance to rile the various critical camps....A few interesting readings emerge Blake's Infant Joy as a 'Rousseauist vacuum' into which all sorts of unspeakable horrors threaten to rush, Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest as a 'reactionary political poem', a gripping account of Melville's Moby-Dick, Emily Dickinson recast as 'Madame deSade' but the rest is largely unsurprising." Rachel Clare, The Times Literary Supplement
Review
"A remarkable book, at once outrageous and compelling, fanatical and brilliant....One must be awed by [Paglia's] vast energy, erudition and wit" Washington Post Book World
Synopsis
Here is the fiery, provocative, and unparalleled work of feminist art criticism that launched Camille Paglia s exceptional career as one of our most important public intellectuals. Is Emily Dickinson the female Sade ? Is Donatello s David a bit of pedophile pornography? What is the secret kinship between Byron and Elvis Presley, between Medusa and Madonna? How do liberals and feminists as well as conservatives fatally misread human nature? This audacious and omnivorously learned work of guerrilla scholarship offers nothing less than a unified-field theory of Western culture, high and low, since Egyptians invented beauty making a persuasive case for all art as a pagan battleground between male and female, form and chaos, civilization and daemonic nature.
47 photographs."
Synopsis
The fiery, provocative, and unparalleled work of feminist art criticism that launched the exceptional career of one of our most important public intellectuals--a remarkable book, at once outrageous and compelling, fanatical and brilliant.... One must be awed by Paglia's] vast energy, erudition and wit (The Washington Post).
Is Emily Dickinson "the female Sade"? Is Donatello's
David a bit of pedophile pornography? What is the secret kinship between Byron and Elvis Presley, between Medusa and Madonna? How do liberals and feminists--as well as conservatives--fatally misread human nature? This audacious and omnivorously learned work of guerrilla scholarship offers nothing less than a unified-field theory of Western culture, high and low, since Egyptians invented beauty--making a persuasive case for all art as a pagan battleground between male and female, form and chaos, civilization and daemonic nature.
With 47 photographs.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 675-700) and index.