Sexual Personae – Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale Nota Bene) - Softcover

Paglia, Camille

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300091273 ISBN 13: 9780300091274

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Is Emily Dickinson "the female Sade"? Is Donatello's David a bit of paedophile pornography? What is the secret kinship between Byron and Elvis Presley, between the Medusa and Madonna? How do liberals and feminists - as well as conservatives - fatally misread human nature? This audacious and omnivorously learned work of guerilla scholarship offers nothing less than a unified-field theory of Western culture, high and low, since the Egyptians invented beauty - making a persuasive case for all art as a pagan battleground between male and female, form and chaos, civilisation and demonic nature.

About this title

Review:

"Sexual Personae is an enormous sensation of a book, in all the better senses of 'sensation'. -- Harold Bloom

"A fine, disturbing book. It seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his/her prejudices..." -- Anthony Burgess

"It relentlessly pursues its ambition to assault the emotions, batter the brain and aim a kick at the groin." -- Alan Bold, The Times

"Provocative ... a radical reappraisal of the human condition. Her style is marked by angry exhiliration, brittle epigrams and acid paradoxes." -- Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

Camille Paglia is the University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. A regular contributor to Salon.com, she is the author of Glittering Images; Break, Blow, Burn; Sexual Personae; Sex, Art, and American Culture; and Vamps & Tramps.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0300091273
• ISBN 13: 9780300091274
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 733