The title captures the essence, the different personae (persona: social role, one's appearance displayed to the outside world) and the sexual element in these. The first chapter – Sex and Violence, or Nature and Art – presents the essence of her, at times extreme, argument. She then goes through an overview of Western culture with an emphasis on the Renaissance and Romanticism (where her work ends), Rousseau being regarded as a major and unfortunate influence. There is a concentration in her discussion of the Renaissance on the visual and in Romanticism on the literary. Her written style is a somewhat slowed-down version of her verbal style, infused with much quickness and wit. Why in a 700 page volume she didn't add a concluding chapter I do not know; perhaps after a long discussion on 'Amherst's Madame de Sade' she could endure no more. Still, abruptly ending with Emily Dickenson and her psychopathologies almost gives the impression that this is a collection of essays first published elsewhere.
The various dualities Dionysian / Apollonian, pagan / Judeo-Christian, female / male, nature / nurture and within nature (of which she has a dark view) itself as malevolent / benevolent are well portrayed and give rise to thought. Her discussion of the androgynous nature of different characters in literary works (e.g. those in Goethe) as well as the 'enormous power' of the mother/woman is well carried. In her analysis of various writers her argument is often repeated; perhaps to have taken fewer examples from each would have been adequate, then again she is presenting a view of various (mainly English) writers which is perhaps quite different from the standard literary critique and therefore worthy of explication.
Her discussions of Western decadence such as seen in later Romanticism are as relevant to America in 2016 as when first written (and most probably, too, her current critique of the prevailing ideological climate of 'leading' American universities).
- Paperback: 718 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (August 20, 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9780679735793
- ISBN-13: 978-0679735793
- ASIN: 0679735798
- Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Customer Reviews: 97 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#45,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19 in Philosophy Aesthetics
- #112 in General Gender Studies
- #30 in Gothic & Romantic Literary Criticism (Books)
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