Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-De-Siecle Culture

Dijkstra, Bram

NY: Oxford University Press, 1986. Hardcover. Illustrated glossy dj. Cloth boards. 453 pp. 300+ bw plates. VG, dj has some rubbing. Item #6941
ISBN: 9780195037791

A highly acclaimed study on they effects of the "war against Women" that was waged in America and Europe during the end of the 19th century on into the 20th century, and how it was manifested in art and sculpture. Very well illustrated, extensive notes "In the years around 1900, an unprecedented attack on women erupted in virtually every aspect of culture: literary, artistic, scientific, and philosophic. Many of the anti-feminine platitudes that today still constrain women's potential were first formulated during this period, as intellectuals of every stripe throughout Europe and America banded together to picture women as static beings whose sole function was sexual and reproductive. This text explores the nature and development of turn-of-the-century misogyny in the works of hundreds of writers, artists, and scientists, including such figures as Zola, Strindberg, Wedekind, Henry James, Rossetti, Renoir, Maurois, Klimt, Darwin, and Spencer, not to mention a host of now-forgotten others.