Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Searching in his Aesthetics for a metaphor which would reflect the nature of pre-classical and pre-rational humanity Hegel came upon the image of the ancient sphinx a mysterious mixed creature half woman and half beast. The sphinx can also serve as a good symbol for the grotesque a heterogeneous genre which presents many riddles. Wandering around the colossal woman-animal and the cave that shelters her trying to relate the seductive smile on her lips to her paws and lion’s tail one feels small stupid and mystified-like a child. The more that is discovered about her the more this sentiment seems justified. She forces her explorers to descend into the obscure past of humanity and into their own infancies where riddles different from those asked in the civilized adult world must be answered. But how to pose them being oneself part of a late and hyper-rational culture and not a member of an early society? This book attempts to cope with the difficulty by balancing itselt between a proper scholarly approach and a loose associative meandering in pursuit of two goals one major and general the other minor and particular. Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex strives for a general understanding of the ambiguity and complexity of the grotesque. It traces the origins outlines the territory studies the iconography suggests a chronology. (SP)