| Desiring the Dead: Necrophilia and Nineteenth-Century French Literature Contributor(s): Downing, Prof Lisa (Author) |
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ISBN: 1900755653 ISBN-13: 9781900755658 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $92.14 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2002 Annotation: In the nineteenth century, literature shared with the medical and psychological sciences a strategy of examining the most extreme manifestations of human desire. Drawing case material from the nineteenth-century French canon, the author brings works by Baudelaire and Rachilde into dialogue with key European texts of sexology and psychoanalysis. She reads against the grain of traditional Freudian theories of sexuality, and feminist critiques of the 'masculine' morbid aesthetic in order to bring to light a model of desire whose problematic nature afflicts existing discourses about sexuality and gender in nineteenth-century France and beyond. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | European - French - Psychology | Human Sexuality (see Also Social Science - Human Sexuality) - History | Modern - 19th Century |
| Dewey: 840.935 |
| Series: Legenda |
| Physical Information: 0.38" H x 5.46" W x 8.68" (0.52 lbs) 156 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - French |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the 19th century, literature shared with the medical and psychological sciences a strategy of examining the most extreme manifestations of human desire. While fetishism, sadism and masochism still resonate as concepts with critical currency, necrophilia has received little attention. In this groundbreaking study, Lisa Downing rescues necrophilia from the margins of sexual desire, relocating it as a symptom and a pervasive fantasy of modern subjectivity. Drawing case material from the 19th century French canon, the author brings works by Baudelaire and Rachilde into dialogue with foundational European texts of sexology and Psychoanalysis. She reads against the grain of traditional Freudian theories of sexuality, the conventions of 19th century literary scholarship, and feminist critiques of the 'masculine' morbid aesthetic in order to bring to light a model of desire whose problematic nature afflicts existing discourses about sexuality and gender in 19th century France and beyond. |