Ubiquitous in the streets and brothels of nineteenth-century Paris, the prostitute was even more so in the novels and paintings of the time. Charles Bernheimer discusses how these representations of the sexually available woman express male ambivalence about desire, money, class, and the body. Interweaving close textual analysis with historical anecdote and theoretical speculation, Bernheimer demonstrates how the formal properties of art can serve strategically to control anxious fantasies about female sexual power. Drawing on methods derived from cultural studies, psychoanalysis, social history, feminist theory, and narrative analysis, this interdisciplinary classic (available now for the first time in paperback) was awarded Honorable Mention in 1990 for the James Russell Lowell prize awarded by the Modern Language Association for the best book of criticism.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"Figures of Ill Repute brilliantly explores the prostitute's embodiment of the threat of female sexuality and her subjection to artistic strategies of containment. [Bernheimer's] compelling readings of Balzac, Manet, and Zola and his provocative discussions of Flaubert and Degas advance debates about sexuality and representation and refocus the history of modernity."-Jonathan Culler "[A]n important work. . . . Shifting nimbly from close textual analysis to biographical or scientific information, from psychoanalytic speculation to anecdotes of social history, this original, exciting study offers . . . a truly liberal view of the seriousness and importance of all our representational activities."-Leo Bersani
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 235 mm
Breite: 156 mm
Dicke: 25 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-1947-4 (9780822319474)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Charles Bernheimer is Professor of Romance Languages and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Flaubert and Kafka and coeditor of In Dora's Case.
Preface to the Duke Edition vii
Acknowledgments xi
List of Illustrations xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 1
1. Parent-DuchAtelet: Engineer of Abjection 8
2. Cashing in on Hearts of Gold: Balzac and Sue 34
3. Barbey's Dandy Narratives 69
4. Manet's Olympia: The Figuration of Scandal 89
5. The Idea of Prostitution in Flaubert 129
6. Degas's Brothels: Voyeurism and Ideology 157
7. Decomposing Venus: The Corpse of Naturalism 200
8. Huysmans: Syphilis, Hysteria, and Sublimation 234
Conclusion 266
Notes 277
Credits 321
Index 323
