Author: Regier, Willis Goth

Binding: Hardcover

Number Of Pages: 301

Release Date: 01-10-2004

Details: Product Description 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. From Booklist From ancient art to contemporary popular music, Regier ranges widely in exploring the meaning of the enigmatic image of the sphinx. Although occasionally too floridly written, this is nonetheless a compelling book about an engaging subject. Beginning with the most famous sphinx, the one that stands before the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Regier traces the career of the half-human, half-monster hybrid through dreams, literature, and visual art. Always he finds paradox to be the essence of the creature; it is seductive and destructive, alluring and repellent, elusive and confrontive. Many illustrations, ranging from the familiar (Ingres, Gerome, Marvel Comics) to the obscure (political cartoons, stereoscopes, old postcards) enhance the value of the book as a reference for those intrigued by art's most monstrous charmer. Patricia Monaghan Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review “A very accomplished, well-written book. Book of the Sphinx is immensely erudite, with a wealth of references from all historical periods, from ancient Egypt to modern times, and from the most diverse realms.”—Jonathan Culler, the author of Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature “A successfully playful work of nonfiction that situates itself in the academic landscape somewhere between cultural history and comparative literature, Sphinx is both scholarly and imaginative. . . . Every good library should have it, and so should every coffee table.”—Joshua T. Katz, American Journal of Archaeology " Book of the Sphinx is a delight. Willis Regier is not only very learned but also creative in making fiction, even poetry, out of the myth of the Sphinx and the histories of that myth. His own retellings are artful and compelling."—Gregory Nagy, author of Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens "Regier. . . . Offers here an erudite account of appearances of the Sphinx. . . . So intimate is Regier's familiarity with the Sphinx that this reviewer would be astonished if he missed even one reference to this remarkable composite monster. An added joy is Regier's light and witty tone and his engaging prose, which frequently rises to the level of poetry."— Choice Delightful. . . . Book of the Sphinx is happy all the way through: a grab bag , treasure trove, and star chart of the mythic monster's whereabouts in art, religion, history, and literature, with the winks, nods, footnotes, bird trills, and memory-bank shots of a scholar so intimately at home that he seems, like his subject, to be playing with his food. The illustrations are as sly as the text. . . . Regier [is] my hero of culture for the month."—John Leonard, Harper's About the Author Willis Goth Regier has pursued Sphinxes at the

EAN: 9780803239562

Package Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches

Languages: English