- Paperback: 718 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books; Vintage Books ed edition (1 Feb 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679735798
- ISBN-13: 978-0679735793
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.3 x 3.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
76,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24 in Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Communication Studies > Semiology
- #46 in Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Women & Art
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
"Sexual Personae is an enormous sensation of a book, in all the better senses of 'sensation'. There is no book comparable in scope, stance, design or insight." Harold Bloom "A fine, disturbing book. It seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his/her prejudices. It is very learned. Each sentence jabs like a needle." 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
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Anthony Burgess
"A fine, disturbing book. It seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his/her prejudices..."
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Taken carefully, like high quality chocolate, this gigantic, opiate den of a book induces in the reader a welcome yearning to find or revisit the veiled, dark side of some wonderful writing.
Each chapter dwells, in chronological order, on a selection of writers Paglia identifies as key to her uncovering of sexual archetypes - some old, some newly found – across the classic canon of art & literature.
A timeline is the first & last stable element of the book, as she barely touches the rudder to drift the reader through a protean, delicious, swamp-realm of sexual drives, longings & fervent consummations emerging from the misty shadows of the artists` work.
At any turn the journey can move from a moment of searing clarity & insight (e.g. the idea that men created the “beauty in nature” aesthetic to drown out despairing truth – that nature is an uncontrollable, sadistic force which will always prevail somehow) or slide miles away for an extended, purely aesthetic exaltation of a poem`s beauty & style, allowing Paglia`s boundless critical language to, at times, out-shimmer its subject.
As it delineates & parades varieties of sexual personae – beautiful boys, nurturing males, vampiric lesbians, femme fatales, alien androgynes & hieratic hermaphrodite, their literary habitats, their guises & displays - this book`s overall effect is akin to swooning; a too-muchness of information & graphic analysis – one long orgy of impulses, connections & echoes across art, social politics and sexual expression.
Some might find the scintillating richness of forensic scholarship & erotic allusion draining & saturating; others (like this reader) will willingly plunge into this perfumed mud bath & roil in it all.
At the end, the rewards are an appreciation of Paglia`s ability to reach the parts most other critics won`t reach, an opened-up list of further reading that should sustain any liberated appetite for years & an ability to see through anything in trousers.
Each chapter dwells, in chronological order, on a selection of writers Paglia identifies as key to her uncovering of sexual archetypes - some old, some newly found – across the classic canon of art & literature.
A timeline is the first & last stable element of the book, as she barely touches the rudder to drift the reader through a protean, delicious, swamp-realm of sexual drives, longings & fervent consummations emerging from the misty shadows of the artists` work.
At any turn the journey can move from a moment of searing clarity & insight (e.g. the idea that men created the “beauty in nature” aesthetic to drown out despairing truth – that nature is an uncontrollable, sadistic force which will always prevail somehow) or slide miles away for an extended, purely aesthetic exaltation of a poem`s beauty & style, allowing Paglia`s boundless critical language to, at times, out-shimmer its subject.
As it delineates & parades varieties of sexual personae – beautiful boys, nurturing males, vampiric lesbians, femme fatales, alien androgynes & hieratic hermaphrodite, their literary habitats, their guises & displays - this book`s overall effect is akin to swooning; a too-muchness of information & graphic analysis – one long orgy of impulses, connections & echoes across art, social politics and sexual expression.
Some might find the scintillating richness of forensic scholarship & erotic allusion draining & saturating; others (like this reader) will willingly plunge into this perfumed mud bath & roil in it all.
At the end, the rewards are an appreciation of Paglia`s ability to reach the parts most other critics won`t reach, an opened-up list of further reading that should sustain any liberated appetite for years & an ability to see through anything in trousers.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
this is a treat of a book. the author is erudite in her knowledge and picks and links thoughts and ideas. she has a clear view and this is a classic. anyone who is intersted in archetypes, media, film and culture will find much thought provoking material is this great book.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It is unlikely most readers will get through this book without being somewhat overwelmed by its sparkle, and god/desslike overview of Western literature. It is in the connections that Pagalia really bewilders, uncovering tropes that testify to her originality, showing the marks of a real poetess in prose. There are two chapters on Oscar Wilde and one might recall while reading them a conversation that took place between Wilde and Whistler. Whistler had said something clever, to which Wilde responded. "I wish I had said that." "You will Oscar," answered Whistler, "you will." For all Pagalia's creative, poetic tinkering with concepts, some of those concepts are those of other authors who get far too little recognition here. When she uses the metaphor of a wedge in talking about sexuality why doesn't Pagalia credit Susan Sontag's work on pornography, and really, in a book constructed around the antagonism of Apollo and Dionysus, what about citing Norman Brown's ground breaking work "Life Against Death." Unless you have a taste for sado-masochistic imagery and the determination to try to figure why it so fascinates this author don't attempt this book. That apart, the work will do little but stimulate the poet/ess in you, or if you are a critic, cause you a great deal of anxiety.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Completely Fascinating!
One of the most stimulating and thrilling books I have ever read in my life, Sexual Personae will never bore you! Read more
Published 1 month ago by alphaelsaluna
Dancing to the rhythm of an African Nietzsche: Euro culture
It isn't very often that a book can create such seizmic shiftsin a person's consciousness and perspective on, oh, just abouteverything. Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2002 by Earl Hazell
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