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Bram Dijkstra

Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture (Oxford Paperbacks) Paperback – September 29, 1988

by Bram Dijkstra (Author)

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At the turn of the century, an unprecedented attack on women erupted in virtually every aspect of culture: literary, artistic, scientific, and philosophic. Throughout Europe and America, artists and intellectuals banded together to portray women as static and unindividuated beings who functioned solely in a sexual and reproductive capacity, thus formulating many of the anti-feminine platitudes that today still constrain women's potential.
Bram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity explores the nature and development of turn-of-the-century misogyny in the works of hundreds of writers, artists, and scientists, including Zola, Strindberg, Wedekind, Henry James, Rossetti, Renoir, Moreau, Klimt, Darwin, and Spencer. Dijkstra demonstrates that the most prejudicial aspects of Evolutionary Theory helped to justify this wave of anti-feminine sentiment. The theory claimed that the female of the species could not participate in the great evolutionary process that would guide the intellectual male to his ultimate, predestined role as a disembodied spiritual essence. Darwinists argued that women hindered this process by their willingness to lure men back to a sham paradise of erotic materialism. To protect the male's continued evolution, artists and intellectuals produced a flood of pseudo-scientific tracts, novels, and paintings which warned the world's males of the evils lying beneath the surface elegance of woman's tempting skin.
Reproducing hundreds of pictures from the period and including in-depth discussions of such key works as Dracula and Venus in Furs, this fascinating book not only exposes the crucial links between misogyny then and now, but also connects it to the racism and anti-semitism that led to catastrophic genocidal delusions in the first half of the twentieth century. Crossing the conventional boundaries of art history, sociology, the history of scientific theory, and literary analysis, Dijkstra unveils a startling view of a grim and largely one-sided war on women still being fought today.

Print length

472 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
Publication date

September 29, 1988
Dimensions

10.06 x 7 x 1.06 inches
ISBN-10

9780195056525
ISBN-13

978-0195056525
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Excellent study of image of women in 19th century art and general cultural attitudes during that period."―James Doan, Nova University

"An excellent book for an undergraduate seminar―sparks lively interest and discussion."―Edward Dickinson, University of California, Berkeley

"Brilliant analysis, brilliant command of language."―Pauley M. Stein, California State University

"[An] excellent book!"―John Murray, New York Institute of Technology

"Dijkstra's straightforward discussion of misogyny in nineteenth-century art is long overdue. His thematic groupings of subject matter cut across lines of academic versus avant-garde, which is very instructive for students to see."―F. Connelly, University of Missouri

"A provocative and absorbing book."―Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"This pioneering, witty, devastating survey breaks new ground in tracing men's hatred toward women and how this fear and loathing has shaped our culture."―Publishers Weekly

"[Dijkstra is] more than equal to the task of analyzing the cultural war waged on women at the turn of the century....[Readers] will not be able to forget [his] message, so applicable to the end of our century―that ideological dualisms, whether about sex or race, are also deadly."―Alessandra Comini, The New York Times Book Review

"A stupendous work―deeply serious, wildly delightful, abounding in new learning and insights."―Rudolph Binion, Journal of Psychohistory

"A ground-breaking, important book....Will clearly be important to art historians and feminist critics of the late nineteenth century."―Susan Gubar, The Washington Times Magazine

From the Back Cover

This is a book filled with the dangerous fantasies of the Beautiful People of a century ago. It contains a few scenes of exemplary virtue and many more of lurid sin.

ASIN : 0195056523
Publisher : Oxford University Press, U.S.A. (September 29, 1988)
Language : English
Paperback : 472 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780195056525
ISBN-13 : 978-0195056525
Item Weight : 2.19 pounds
Dimensions : 10.06 x 7 x 1.06 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #957,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #517 in Black & African American Literary Criticism (Books)
- #789 in Victorian Literary Criticism (Books)
- #4,632 in Arts & Photography Criticism

Customer Reviews:
31 ratings

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5 star		71%
4 star		12%
3 star		5%
2 star		7%
1 star		6%

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Cristabel

Outstanding book! I am using it for thesis

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2016

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Outstanding book! Well-researched, entertaining for those who want to know better women's history since the beginning of time. It mostly revolves around mid-nineteenth century England, but the analysis of the historical events, literature and art of the time gives it an incredible amount of credibility. I am using it for my M.A thesis in English Lit. and it has proven to be a great source of information!

3 people found this helpful

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dadaloco

DYNAMITE BETWEEN THE COVERS......SUPER READ.

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2015

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Terrific book....along the lines of "Crime and Destiny" loaded with tons of illustrations and written in a clarity that is not overtly academic , best I have read (twice) this year, get it rather than some rock bio(?) this is a perfect effort...Dal Lazlo (crime art expert)

3 people found this helpful

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Sprezzaturra

great

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2012

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a beautiful book I have two copies,You people should not require me to use a certain number of words, it just doesnt make sense. I only wanted to say it is good.

One person found this helpful

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skyla2186

Fantastic book; tons of images/illustrations surrounded by a truly ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2014

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Fantastic book; tons of images/illustrations surrounded by a truly comprehensive look at the cultural evaluations of fin-de-siecle artists and subcultures by their critics and peers. Provides a great sample of both European and American cultural phenomenon in this period.

Helpful

Great book, great seller

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2013

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I paid a lot for the deliver, but the book came in perfect shape and only 1 day later than expected (and the delay had to do with our customs office, I live in Argentina).

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Matthew RYAN

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2015

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Every thing was great except for ups

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Doug Grandpre

Beware: It's about society; not art

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2012

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From the standpoint of a study of art, this book is not worth having (even if it's at a good price) in spite of the rarely-often reproduced images. The images are poor. If they had been in color, they would have been worth the publisher's price. This book is not about painting, but rather about the content of paintings. I would rather have had half the paintings reproduced in color and a tenth the commentry edited out. The same point could have been made if a lot of Victorian pornography had been substituted. But the rarity of the chosen works gives them some value as an art study. Just separate the cultural comment (whatever your personal opinion) from the art work if you can.

5 people found this helpful

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S. Gustafson

A worthy heir to Max Nordau and Mario Praz

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2000

If you have read Nordau's -Degeneration-, you will find that the most appealing part of that tome to the present day reader will be the fact that it serves as admirable Baedeker to the highlights of late 19th century (mostly French) literature. It does so in the form of a moralistic tract, founded in the public-healthism of Nordau's era, and specifically Cesare Lombroso's attempt to create a "science" of what might be best termed as forensic phrenology. [Lombroso maintained that criminals displayed hereditary "atavistic" traits, and that therefore by looking for facial features he deemed "atavistic," criminal tendencies could be weeded out of the population. Nordau then applied Lombroso's criteria to identify many literary titans as atavistic moral degenerates.]

More people may be familiar with Mario Praz's -The Romantic Agony-, again a tract tinged with moral hostility against the stasis and cruelty of "decadence," that once again serves as a lovely field guide to Symbolist and late Romantic poetry. Praz, perhaps fortunately for his present reputation, sticks with non-falsifiable and purely artistic criticisms.

The point here is that Nordau's and Praz's books in fact add relish and anticipation to the literary works they describe despite their moralistic thunders against them. It's applying reverse psychology to the Paglia/Spenser effect --- for Camille Paglia's -Sexual Personae-, whatever other merits or demerits it may have, has won more readers for Spenser's -Faerie Queene- these past several years than the poem probably had over the past century.

-Idols of Perversity- purports to analyze images from late 19th century art in the light of feminist doctrine, with an eye to the (rather obvious) thesis that these figures represent male sexual fantasies, often misogynistic, and not flesh and blood women. Unlike most other tracts of cultural criticism that start from the moral assumptions of identity politics, Dijkstra's at least has the merit of actually persuading its readers that the hypothesis it wishes to develop is true.

On the other hand, the moralizing tone of the work gives it a place on the same shelf as Nordau and Praz; more so because the book is of necessity handsomely illustrated with dozens of interesting fantasy paintings, many by largely forgotten artists --- the fact, of course, that first attracted my attention to it in the first place. If you have any interest in these pictures at all, -Idols- is a handy reference guide, and Dijkstra's text serves the ironic purpose of making the pictures seem that much more wickedly fun, just as his distinguished predecessors do.

22 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Michael Christie

Clever writing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

Brilliant book, eye-opening. Explains a lot about male attitudes to women in the 19th Century, and why we are where we are today.

Witchywoo

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2015

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Informative, well-written and exquisitely researched. Can be read for pleasure or for study.

nata

magnifique

Reviewed in France on October 7, 2013

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Des images superbes ! L'auteur a eut une excellente idée de traiter en particulier cette période historique ... la période victorienne est pour moi synonyme d'Hypocrisie et en voici dévoilée ... une de ses facettes. Très intéressant l'évolution de l'image de la femme.

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Lilla

un classico

Reviewed in Italy on June 16, 2014

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Uno sguardo acuto e approfondito sulla donna nell'arte e nella letteratura di fine '800. Molto bello. Qui edizione economica in inglese

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Beatrice Grandordy

femmes fatales

Reviewed in France on April 17, 2012

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la référence sur la question, esthétiquement. Très complet pour le début XXe, il manque peut-être l'évolution actuelle de la femme fatale.....

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