Book of the Sphinx (Texts and Contexts) - Softcover

Regier, Willis Goth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803215975 ISBN 13: 9780803215979

Publisher: Bison Books, 2007

Synopsis

Sought, the Sphinx seems everywhere, whether the guardian of the pyramids on Egypt's Giza plateau or the beautiful man-eater with a deadly riddle, to be approached with awful caution. The Sphinx, that icon painted, sculpted, engraved, and exalted in poetry, fiction, and music, so impressed the philosopher Hegel that he pronounced the creature the symbol of the symbolic itself. With a wealth of illustrations, Book of the Sphinx confirms Hegel's lofty judgment, finding the Sphinx everywhere: in tragedies, paintings, opera, murder mysteries, brothels, bars, and advertisements. Pursuing the Sphinx through kaleidoscopic sightings and encyclopedic observations, Willis Goth Regier plumbs the symbol's mysteries, conducting the reader down ever more perplexing and intriguing paths. Wonderfully readable, his highly idiosyncratic tour of the ages and the arts leads at last to a conception of the Sphinx that embraces nothing less than all that is unknowable--proving once again that confronting a Sphinx is one of the most dangerous and exhilarating adventures of the imagination. Willis Goth Regier has pursued Sphinxes at the University of Nebraska, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. He now seeks Sphinxes at the University of Illinois.

About this title

About the Author

Willis Goth Regier has pursued Sphinxes at the University of Nebraska, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. He now seeks Sphinxes at the University of Illinois.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803215975
• ISBN 13: 9780803215979
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320