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"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show." (Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)

2005, Sep 10; 17:07 ::: Difference and Repetition (1968) - Gilles Deleuze

Difference and Repetition (1968) - Gilles Deleuze [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Since its publication in 1968, "Difference and Repetition", an exposition of the critique of identity, has come to be considered a contemporary classic in philosophy and one of Deleuze's most important works. The text follows the development of two central concepts, those of pure difference and complex repetition. It shows how the two concepts are related, difference implying divergence and decentring, repetition being associated with displacement and disguising. The work moves deftly between Hegel, Kierkegaard, Freud, Althusser and Nietzsche to establish a fundamental critique of Western metaphysics, and has been a central text in initiating the shift in French thought - away from Hegel and Marx, towards Nietzsche and Freud.-- amazon.co.uk

Difference and Repetition (French title: Différence et répétition) is a 1969 philosophical book by Gilles Deleuze which concerns the study of difference and repetition. It was Gilles Deleuze's doctoral thesis. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_and_Repetition [Sept 2005]

See also: Gilles Deleuze - difference - repetition

2005, Sep 10; 17:07 ::: Allen Garfield

Allen Garfield, photograph unidentified

Allen Garfield (22 November 1939 Newark, New Jersey, USA) is an American film person.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Garfield [Sept 2005]

See also: American cinema - actor

2005, Sep 10; 16:29 ::: In the age of the phonograph

Unidentified turntable picture

In the age of the phonograph, repeatability became a criterion for evaluating music; it was frequently remarked that the best works rewarded numerous hearings while lesser pieces palled upon repetition. Predictably, popular music was said to wear poorly, while "good music" continually paid aural dividends. As one writer claimed of popular music in 1931, "Repeated listening makes it recognizable for what it is and turns liking into loathing."(17) Psychologists even tested the idea. Two sets of experimenters concluded in 1924 and 1927 that while young people immediately enjoyed listening to popular selections, their interest waned upon repeated hearings; on the other hand, the subjects found the classical discs more appealing after each playing.(18) One must wonder, however, what the results would have been had the Kismet Fox Trot or Sultan One Step been replaced with works by, say, Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington. --text sourced here. [Sept 2005]

See also: popular music - gramophone

2005, Sep 09; 19:29 ::: Looks unlimited


Image sourced here.

2005, Sep 09; 19:29 ::: Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976) - Peter Yates

Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976) - Peter Yates [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Mother, Jugs & Speed was a 1976 comedy film starring Bill Cosby (Mother), Raquel Welch (Jugs) and Harvey Keitel (Speed), who are employees of a low-budget ambulance service trying to survive in Los Angeles. Allen Garfield plays the role of Harry Fishbine, the owner of the company. Larry Hagman appears in the movie as a driver obsessed with sex. The movie was directed by Peter Yates. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother,_Jugs_&_Speed [Sept 2005]

See also: USA - 1976 - jugs - speed

2005, Sep 10; 15:41 ::: The Howling (1981) - Joe Dante

The Howling (1981) - Joe Dante [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Image sourced here.

The Howling is a 1981 horror film directed by Joe Dante. Based on the novel by Gary Braunder, the film is written by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless. The original music score is composed by Pino Donaggio

Tagline: Imagine your worst fear a reality.

Plot summary
Television reporter/anchor Karen White is taking part in a dangerous police operation intended to trap psychopath Eddie Quist. When confronted by Eddie face-to-face, she witnesses something horrifying enough to trigger selective amnesia.

Plagued by a series of violent nightmates, Karen decides to admit herself to a posh recovery resort known as "the Colony", run by her eccentric New Age therapist Dr. George Waggner, and bring along her husband Bill Neill for support. The night after they arrive, Karen and Bill are unnerved by eerie howling in the woods. Back in Los Angeles, Chris Dugan and Terry Fisher have been investigating Eddie's background after discovering that his body has disappeared from the morgue. Sifting through Eddie's possesions, they find a strange collection of artwork depicting wolf-like creatures, and decides to consult with Walter Paisley, the owner of an occult bookshop, on werewolf lore. Though he claims not to believe in the stuff he's selling, Paisley nevertheless convinces Chris to purchase a handful of silver bullets...just in case.

Back at the Colony, Dr. Waggner has organized a hunting party after hearing Karen's account of the nocturnal howling, but the men find nothing but a rabbit, which Bill is told to bring to the cabin of the sultry Marsha Quist to prepare for dinner. After resisting Marsha's less-than-subtle sexual overtures, Bill is attacked by a wolf while returning to his cabin. The following moonlit night, the sleepless Bill wanders finds Marsha waiting and the two make love by the campfire, their bodies undergoing a frightening transformation. Just as Karen is beginning to suspect that her husband is hiding a secret far more threatening than marital infidelity, Chris and Terry have come to realize;too late in Terry's case;that Eddie Quist is not only still alive, but not quite human...and he knows he's being followed. Chris arrives at the Colony too late to save Terry, but manages to find Karen just as the Colony's residents; all of whom are werewolves including Dr. Waggner; are assembling to decide her fate. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Howling [Sept 2005]

Dedicated to Curt, who's Groovy Age of Horror has "werewolf month": http://groovyageofhorror.blogspot.com/

See also: werewolf - 1981 - horror film - Joe Dante - Roger Corman

2005, Sep 09; 19:29 ::: List of banned authors during the Third Reich

These authors are a selection from the prohibitions lists during the Nazi Third Reich and come from the following lists and others:

  • List of damaging and undesirable writing, Liste des schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums, December 31, 1938
  • Jahreslisten 1939-1941. Unchanged new printing of the Leipzig edition, 1938-1941, Vaduz 1979

The official list was published by the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda. Authors were placed on the list because of Jewish decent, or because of pacifist or communist sympathies or suspicision thereof. Dead authors also appeared on the list.

In May and June 1933, in the first year of the Nazi government, there were open book burnings. These book bans compose a part of the history of censorship and a subset of the list of banned books.

A - Alfred Adler - Hermann Adler - Max Adler - Raoul Auernheimer - - B - Otto Bauer - Vicki Baum - Johannes R. Becher - Richard Beer-Hofmann - Walter Benjamin - Walter A. Berendsohn - Ernst Bloch - Felix Braun - Josef Braunthal - Bertolt Brecht - Willi Bredel - Hermann Broch - Ferdinand Bruckner - - C - - D - Alfred Döblin - John Dos Passos - - E - Kasimir Edschmid - Albert Ehrenstein - Albert Einstein - Carl Einstein - Friedrich Engels - - F - Lion Feuchtwanger - Marieluise Fleißer - Wilhelm Friedrich Foerster - Leonhard Frank - Anna Freud - Sigmund Freud - Egon Friedell - Salomo Friedlaender - - G - André Gide - Claire Goll - Oskar Maria Graf - George Grosz - - H - Ferdinand Hardekopf - Jakob Haringer - Jaroslav Hašek - Walter Hasenclever - Raoul Hausmann - Max Herrmann-Neisse - Franz Hessel - Magnus Hirschfeld - Jakob van Hoddis - Ödön von Horvath - I - Vera Inber - - J - Hans Henny Jahnn - Georg Jellinek - Franz Jung - - K - Erich Kästner - Franz Kafka - Georg Kaiser - Mascha Kaleko - Alfred Kantorowicz - Karl Kautsky - Hans Kelsen - Alfred Kerr - Hermann Kesten - Irmgard Keun - Klabund - Alma J. Koenig - Annette Kolb - Gertrud Kolmar - Paul Kornfeld - Siegfried Kracauer - Theodor Kramer - Karl Kraus - Adam Kuckhoff - - L - Else Lasker-Schüler - Lenin - Hubertus Prinz zu Löwenstein - Ernst Lothar - Emil Ludwig - Rosa Luxemburg - - M - André Malraux - Heinrich Mann - Klaus Mann - Thomas Mann - Hans Marchwitza - Ludwig Marcuse - Karl Marx - Walter Mehring - Gustav Meyrink - Erich Mühsam - Robert Musil - - N - Alfred Neumann - Robert Neumann - - O - Carl von Ossietzky - Karl Otten - Ernst Ottwalt - - P - Hertha Pauli - Kurt Pinthus - Adelheid Popp - - Q - R - Fritz Reck-Malleczewen - Erik Reger - Gustav Regler - Wilhelm Reich - Erich Maria Remarque - Karl Renner - Joachim Ringelnatz - Joseph Roth - - S - Nelly Sachs - Felix Salten - Rahel Sanzara - Arno Schirokauer - Arthur Schnitzler - Anna Seghers - Walter Serner - Ignazio Silone - Wilhelm Speyer - Rudolf Steiner - Carl Sternheim - - T - Adrienne Thomas - Ernst Toller - Friedrich Torberg - Bruno Traven - Leon Trotsky - Karl Tschuppik - Kurt Tucholsky - - U - Z - Jakob Wassermann - Armin T. Wegner - Ernst Weiß - Franz Werfel - Eugen Gottlob Winkler - Friedrich Wolf - Paul Zech - Carl Zuckmayer - Arnold Zweig - Stefan Zweig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_authors_during_the_Third_Reich [Sept 2005]

See also: 1930s - banned books - Germany

2005, Sep 09; 16:58 ::: Friedrich Schlegels Lucinde and the Fragments (1971) - Friedrich Schlegel

Friedrich Schlegels Lucinde and the Fragments (1971) - Friedrich Schlegel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Lucinde (1799) is an unfinished romance by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel. For details on its publishing history and obscenity trial, see Ludwig Marcuse's Obscene (1962).

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel (March 10, 1772 - January 11, 1829), German poet, critic and scholar, was the younger brother of August Wilhelm von Schlegel.

He was born at Hanover. He studied law at Göttingen and Leipzig, but ultimately devoted himself entirely to literary studies. He published in 1797 the important book Die Griechen und Römer, which was followed by the suggestive Geschichte der Poesie der Griechen und Römer (1798). At Jena, where he lectured as a Privatdozent at the university, he contributed to the Athenaeum the aphorisms and essays in which the principles of the Romantic school are most definitely stated. Here also he wrote Lucinde (1799), an unfinished romance, which is interesting as an attempt to transfer to practical ethics the Romantic demand for complete individual freedom. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Wilhelm_Friedrich_von_Schlegel [Sept 2005]

See also: 1790s - literature - Germany

2005, Sep 09; 16:58 ::: Treatise on the Physical, Intellectual and Moral Degeneration of the Human Race (1857) - Bénedicte Augustin Morel


Treatise on the Physical, Intellectual and Moral Degeneration of the Human Race (1857) - Bénedicte Augustin Morel
Image sourced here.

“The degenerate human being, if he is abandoned to himself, falls into a progressive degradation. He becomes…not only incapable of forming part of the chain of transmission of progress in human society, he is the greatest obstacle to this progress through his contact with the healthy proportion of the population.” Bénédict Augustin Morel, Treatise on the Physical, Intellectual and Moral Degeneration of the Human Race, 1857

Bénédict Augustin Morel (1809-1873) was a French doctor who in 1857 published Traite des dégénerescence physique, et intellectuelles et morales de l'espéce humaine in which he argued that some illnesses are caused by degeneration. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9n%C3%A9dict_Morel [Sept 2005]

See also: 1857 - Morel - degeneration - medicine - psychiatry

2005, Sep 09; 16:58 ::: Les Diaboliques (1955) - Henri-Georges Clouzot


Les Diaboliques (1955) - Henri-Georges Clouzot [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Image sourced here.

Black-and-white film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (U.K. title = The Fiends) based on the novel Celle qui n'était plus by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.

Variously described as a "mystery" a "thriller" and even a "horror film," the 1955 classic, starring Simone Signoret, created something of a sensation. The story is about a romantic triangle that turns deadly when a man's wife and mistress conspire to murder him, but then the body disappears, and things get very weird. It has often been likened to the films of Alfred Hitchcock in that it is still creepy even when you have seen it before and know how it comes out. The end credit contains an early example of an "anti-spoiler message", requesting the audience not to disclose the plot to others who have not seen the film.

The writers of the novel "Celle Qui N'Etait Plus", Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, are credited with early use, if not coinage, of the term film noir, which as also been used to describe Les Diaboliques. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabolique [Sept 2005]

See also: diabolique - H.G. Clouzot - 1955 - French cinema - horror

2005, Sep 09; 15:44 ::: Eyes Without a Face (1959) - Georges Franju


Eyes Without a Face (1959) - Georges Franju [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Image sourced here.

Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans Visage) is a 1959 French film directed by Georges Franju and co-written by the duo Boileau-Narcejac. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_Without_a_Face [Sept 2005]

Boileau-Narcejac is the name by which Pierre Boileau (Paris, 28 April 1906 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer, 1989) and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac (Rochefort-sur-Mer, 3 July 1908 - Nice, 1998) wrote.

They were French writers of police stories, among whom some were adaptated for the movies by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Alfred Hitchcock. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boileau-Narcejac [Sept 2005]

See also: Eyes Without a Face - 1959 - French cinema - horror

2005, Sep 09; 15:44 ::: Selfishness

Selfishness is a primary or sole concern with one's own welfare, while ignoring or harming the welfare of others; the term usually connotes self-concern that is excessive or improper rather than self-interest itself. It is considered by many to be a negative character trait. In particular, it is traditionally proscribed by most religions, and many non-religious philosophies see it as either evil in itself or a source of evil.

Nevertheless, there are some non-religious philosophies that hold a positive view of selfishness. The best known example is probably the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, which focuses on what it calls "rational selfishness" or "rational self-interest." The philosophy holds that individuals should not act on momentary self-interested whims but on what is in their long-term self-interest, which is claimed requires respecting the individual liberty of others by refraining from initiating coercion against them.

Naturally, selfishness usually refers to the self - that is, to the individual. However, in common speech, a group of people can be accused of "selfishness" in the sense that members of that group are not concerned with the welfare of anyone outside their group. For example, a nation that has abundant food yet allows other nations with inadequate food to face famine, may be called a "selfish nation".

In philosophy, the term egoism is usually related to "self-interest" rather than "selfishness."

For the opposite of selfishness, see altruism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfishness [Sept 2005]

In his excellent Misfits, Colin Wilson states that Marquis de Sade's philosophy was one of extreme selfishness, mentioning Sade's denial of the existence of benevolence and altruism. Wilson's portrait of Sade is the first well-balanced I encountered, neither villifying (as it was customary during the 19th century) nor exalting him as it was done in the 20th century (see De Beauvoir and Apollinaire). [Sept 2005]

See also: self - other - altruism

2005, Sep 09; 14:52 ::: Claude Lorrain

Pastoral Landscape with a Flight into Egypt (1663) - Claude Lorrain
Image sourced here.

Claude Lorrain (Lorraine, c1604 - Rome, November 23, 1682) was a French painter considered to be one of the greatest landscape painters. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Lorrain [Sept 2005]

Pastoral
In art, be it literature, painting, or another form, it refers to rural subjects such as villages, herdsmen, and milkmaids, that are romanticized and depicted in a highly unrealistic manner. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastoral [Sept 2005]

See also: idyllic - kitsch - painting - France - kitsch - 1600s

2005, Sep 09; 13:32 ::: Grand Tour

Capriccio with the Colosseum (1743-44) - B. Bellotto

In the 18th century, the Grand Tour was a kind of education for wealthy British noblemen. It was a period of European travel which could last from a few months to 8 years. During the Tour, young men learned about the politics, culture, art and antiquities of neighboring countries. They spent their time sightseeing, studying, and shopping. Italy with its heritage of ancient Roman monuments became one of the most popular places to visit. At the same time, art students from all parts of Europe also came to Italy to learn from ancient models. Sometimes, the trip south was as liberating sexually as it was aesthetically, as several erotic drawings show.

France was the height of style and sophistication, so young men went there to throw off their coarse behavior and put on the polish that set them apart as the aristocracy of Britain. Under the watchful eye of his tutor and cared for by his valet, the young man set off. The first step in the tour was to cross the English Channel to Calais, France. For many young men, this was a test in itself since seasickness was often the result of turbulent crossing. In Paris, all outward traces of the backward Briton were erased as he was fitted for a totally French wardrobe. Dressed like a Frenchman, he was now ready to be introduced to French society. After his introduction in France, the tourist went on to Dijon, Lyon, and finally Marseille.

During the 19th century, most educated young men took the Grand Tour. Later, it became also fashionable for young women. A trip to Italy with a spinster aunt as chaperon was part of the upper-class lady's education.

The success of Thomas Coryat's book Coryat's Crudities is often credited with starting the craze for the Grand Tour. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour [Sept 2005]

The word tour gained acceptance in the 18th century, when the Grand Tour of Europe became part of the upbringing of the educated and wealthy British nobleman or cultured gentleman. Grand tours were taken in particular by young people to "complete" their education. They travelled all over Europe, but notably to places of cultural and aesthetic interest, such as Rome, Tuscany, and the Alps.

The British aristocracy were particularly keen on the Grand Tour, using the occasion to gather art treasures from Europe to add to their collections. The volume of art treasures being moved to Britain in this way was unequalled anywhere else in Europe, and explains the richness of many private and public collections in Britain today. Yet tourism in those days, aimed essentially at the very top of the social ladder and at the well educated, was fundamentally a cultural activity. These first tourists, though undertaking their Grand Tour, were more travellers than tourists.

Most major British artists of the eighteenth century did the "Grand Tour", as did their great European contemporaries such as Claude Lorrain. Classical architecture, literature and art have always drawn visitors to Rome, Naples, Florence.

The Romantic movement (inspired throughout Europe by the English poets William Blake and Lord Byron, among others), extended this to Gothic countryside, the Alps, fast flowing rivers, mountain gorges, etc. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism#The_Grand_Tour [Sept 2005]

See also: tourism - Europe - Italy - France - UK - sublime - 1700s

2005, Sep 09; 13:32 ::: The sublime and the Swiss Alps

The Alps, photo Jan Chciuk-Celt

The development of the concept of the sublime as an aesthetic quality distinct from beauty was first brought into prominence in the eighteenth century in the writings of Anthony Ashley Cooper (third earl of Shaftesbury) and John Dennis, in expressing an appreciation of the fearful and irregular forms of external nature, and Joseph Addison’s synthesis of Cooper’s and Dennis’ concepts of the sublime in his Spectator, and later the Pleasures of the Imagination. All three Englishmen had, within the span of several years, made the journey across the Alps and commented in their writings of the horrors and harmony of the experience, expressing a contrast of aesthetic qualities.

John Dennis was the first to publish his comments in a journal letter published as Miscellanies in 1693, giving an account of crossing the Alps where, contrary to his prior feelings for the beauty of nature as a "delight that is consistent with reason", the experience of the journey was at once a pleasure to the eye as music is to the ear, but "mingled with Horrours, and sometimes almost with despair." Shaftesbury had made the journey two years prior to Dennis but did not publish his comments until 1709 in the Moralists. His comments on the experience also reflected pleasure and repulsion, citing a "wasted mountain" that showed itself to the world as a "noble ruin", but his concept of the sublime in relation to beauty was one of degree rather than the sharp contradistinction that Dennis developed into a new form of literary criticism. Shaftesbury’s writings reflect more of a regard for the awe of the infinity of space, where the sublime was not an aesthetic quality in opposition to beauty, but a quality of a grander and higher importance than beauty.

Joseph Addison made the Grand Tour in 1699 and commented in the Spectator (1712) that "The Alps fill the mind with an agreeable kind of horror". The significance of Addison’s concept of the sublime is that the three pleasures of the imagination that he identified; greatness, uncommonness, and beauty, "arise from visible objects" (sight rather than rhetoric). It is also notable that in writing on the "Sublime in external Nature", he does not use the term "sublime", but uses terms that would be considered as absolutive superlatives, e.g. "unbounded", "unlimited", as well as "spacious", "greatness", and on occasion terms denoting excess.

Addison’s notion of greatness was integral to the concept of the sublime. An art object could be beautiful but it could not rise to greatness. His work Pleasures of the Imagination, as well as Mark Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination (1744), and Edward Young's Night Thoughts (1745), are generally considered as the starting points for Edmund Burke's concept of the sublime in Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful (1756). The significance of Burke’s writings is that he was the first philosopher to argue that the sublime and the beautiful are mutually exclusive. The dichotomy is not as simple as Dennis' opposition, but antithetical to the same degree as light and darkness. Beauty may be accentuated by light, but either intense light or darkness (the absence of light) is sublime to the degree that it can obliterate the sight of an object. The imagination is moved to awe and instilled with a degree of horror by what is "dark, uncertain, and confused." While the relationship of the sublime and the beautiful is one of mutual exclusiveness, either one can produce pleasure. The sublime may inspire horror, but one receives pleasure in knowing that the perception is a fiction. Burke's concept of the sublime was a stark contrast to the classical notion of aesthetic quality in Plato's Philebus, Ion, and Symposium, and suggested ugliness as an aesthetic quality. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_%28philosophy%29 [Sept 2005]

See also: sublime - nature

2005, Sep 09; 12:47 ::: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) - Edmund Burke

A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) - Edmund Burke [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The above edition is from 1773
image sourced here.

A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful is a 1757 treatise on aesthetics, written by Edmund Burke. It attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Philosophical_Inquiry_into_the_Origin_of_Our_Ideas_of_the_Sublime_and_Beautiful [Sept 2005]

Book Description
An eloquent and sometimes even erotic book, the Philosophical Enquiry was long dismissed as a piece of mere juvenilia. However, Burke's analysis of the relationship between emotion, beauty, and art form is now recognized as not only an important and influential work of aesthetic theory, but also one of the first major works in European literature on the Sublime, a subject that has fascinated thinkers from Kant and Coleridge to the philosophers and critics of today. --via Amazon.com

See also: sublime - beauty - 1750s - aesthetics

2005, Sep 08; 21:35 ::: Confession

Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821) - Thomas De Quincey [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The above edition is by London, Taylor and Hessey, 1823
image sourced here.

Confession
In criminal proceedings, a confession is a document in which a suspect admits having committed a crime.

Confession of sins
Confession of sins is an integral part of the Christian faith and practice. The meaning is essentially the same as the criminal one - to admit one's own guilt. Confession of one's sins, or at least of one's sinfulness, is seen by most churches as a pre-requisite for becoming a Christian. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession [Sept 2005]

See also: crime - confession - sin - guilt

2005, Sep 08; 21:35 ::: Le Horla (1887) - Guy de Maupassant

Le Horla (1887) - Guy de Maupassant
image sourced here.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Maupassant [Sept 2005]

Le Horla est une nouvelle fantastique de Guy de Maupassant écrite en 1887. Le Horla est le premier des contes que Maupassant a écrit.

Sous forme de journal, l'auteur nous rapporte ses hallucinations : il sent la présence d'un être en lui qu'il nomme le « horla ». Tout au long de la nouvelle, le doute s'installe quant à la folie du personnage principal, ou plutôt de son aliénation, en référence à l'emprise du horla. L'auteur est devenu fou alors qu'il écrivait cette nouvelle, sous l'emprise de morphine.

Un être invisible hante un personnage qui ne peut lui échapper ; une jeune morte réapparaît dans un château gardé par un étrange jardinier ; une main s'anime et tue l'homme qui la gardait chez lui comme un trophée... Voici le sujet de trois des sept nouvelles de ce recueil, sept nouvelles fascinantes où le lecteur, confronté à des faits insolites et captivé par l'art du conteur, sent parfois vaciller sa raison. --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Horla [Sept 2005]

See also: Gothic - Gothic novel - demon - horror fiction - 1887

2005, Sep 08; 21:35 ::: Carmilla (1872) - Le Fanu

Carmilla (1872) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
image sourced here.
Please contact me if you know the author of the artwork on the book cover.

See also: Gothic - Gothic novel - vampire - Carmilla - 1872

2005, Sep 08; 21:35 ::: The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (1764) - Horace Walpole

Title page, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (London: Thomas Lownds, 1765).
image sourced here.

See also: Gothic - Gothic novel - Otranto - Horace Walpole - 1760s

2005, Sep 08; 21:35 ::: Dark Visions (1992) - Stanley Wiater

Dark Visions (1992) - Stanley Wiater [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Interviews with Clive Barker - John Carpenter - Larry Cohen - Roger Corman - Wes Craven - David Cronenberg - Robert Englund - Stuart Gordon - Gale Ann Hurd - Michael McDowell - Caroline Munro - William F. Nolan - Vincent Price (conducted with G. Michael Dobbs) - Sam Raimi - George A. Romero - Paul M. Sammon - Tom Savini - Dick Smith - Joseph Stefano - Stan Winston - Kevin Yagher - Brian Yuzna

See also: Stanley Wiater - dark - vision - horror - horror fiction

2005, Sep 08; 20:33 ::: The Anatomy Lesson (1630) - Rembrandt

The Anatomy Lesson (1630) - Rembrandt

An engraving of this painting hung in the office of Sigmund Freud, as did the Nightmare of Fuseli.

See also: Anatomy - 1600s - Netherlands

2005, Sep 08; 17:56 ::: Dead Mother (1898) - Max Klinger

Dead Mother (1898) - Max Klinger
Image sourced here.

Max Klinger's version of Fuseli's Nightmare.

See also: Max Klinger - 1898 - symbolism

2005, Sep 08; 16:31 ::: The Libertine (2004) - Lawrence Dunmore

The Libertine (2004) - Lawrence Dunmore

The Libertine is an English-language British 2004 film starring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich, Samantha Morton, and Rosamund Pike. It is directed by Lawrence Dunmore from Stephen Jeffreys' adaptation of the play of the same name. Johnny Depp's character is the poet John Wilmot.

The movie features the characters Charles II of England and John Wilmot.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Libertine_%28movie%29 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375920

See also: libertine - 1600s - 2004 - UK - film

2005, Sep 08; 15:22 ::: Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery (1684) - John Wilmot, Earl Rochester

Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery (1684) - John Wilmot, Earl Rochester[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Book Description
The most obscene play ever written. Rochester, a member of the court of Charles II of the England, had a rep as the most outre sexual deviant of his day.

The drama gives us Sodom's king, Bolloxinion, his wife Cuntigratia, their children, generals, ministers and servants engaging in an impossibly wide series of activities, (hook being that *traditional* sex was abandoned, by edict...) --This text refers to the Paperback edition. --via Amazon.com

The play Sodom is not known definitively to be the work of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. Determining date of composition and attribution are complicated owing mostly to misattribution of evidence for and against Rochester's authorship in Restoration and later texts.

Whether by Rochester or not (the question can't be answered), Sodom merits attention not just as an early piece of pornography but also as a disguised satire on the court of Charles II and especially of his apparent willingness to tolerate Catholicism in England at a time when that religion was officially proscribed. Written presumably at the time of Charles's 1672 Declaration of Indulgence (which promulgated official toleration of Catholics and others), Sodom delineates in its racy plot a king much like Charles whose insistence on promoting his sexual preference for sodomy can be read as an analogue to the debate in England at the time about the king's real motive in pushing religious toleration. See Richard Elias, "Political Satire in Sodom," Studies in English Literature, 1978. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom%2C_or_the_Quintessence_of_Debauchery [Sept 2005]

We do know that in 1689 two British booksellers were convicted of obscenity for selling the Earl of Rochester's Sodom: or, The Quintessence of Debauchery (first published in Antwerp in 1684), where the sodomy is almost entirely male-male. --http://www.glbtq.com/literature/censorship,3.html [Sept 2005]

Debauchery
Extreme indulgence in sensual pleasures; dissipation. --AHD

debaucheries
Orgies. --AHD

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (April 1, 1647 – July 26, 1680) was an English nobleman, a friend of King Charles II, and the writer of much satirical and bawdy poetry. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilmot%2C_2nd_Earl_of_Rochester [Sept 2005]

See also: Sodom - 1600s - erotic fiction - UK - obscene - satire - bawdy

2005, Sep 08; 14:34 ::: Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955) - Erwin Panofsky

Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955) - Erwin Panofsky [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Erwin Panofsky (1892 - 1968) was a German art historian and essayist often credited with the founding of the academic iconography.

Active in the Marburg School in Germany, which included Ernst Cassirer and Aby Warburg.

Beginning in 1935, and for the rest of his life, he taught at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton Township, New Jersey.

He was also friends with Wolfgang Pauli, one of the main contributors to quantum physics and atomic theory.

Books

  • Perspective as Symbolic Form (1927)
  • Studies in Iconology (1939)
  • The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (1943)
  • Early Netherlandish Painting (1953)
  • Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955)
  • Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (1962)

    --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Panofsky [Sept 2005]

    See also: art history - 1955 - meaning - art - visual arts

    2005, Sep 08; 11:10 ::: The Last Judgement (1467-71) - Hans Memling

    The Last Judgement (detail) (1467-71) - Hans Memling

    Early Netherlandish painting is a term art historians use to designate a group of painters who were active primarily in the Southern Netherlands in the 15th and early 16th centuries. These painters are also known as the Flemish Primitives, not because their art lacked sophistication (quite to the contrary), but because they were at the origin of a wholly new tradition in painting.

    Chief among them were:

    • Jan van Eyck
    • Rogier van der Weyden
    • Hugo van der Goes
    • Hans Memling
    • Petrus Christus
    • Robert Campin
    • Dirk Bouts
    • Gerard David
    --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Netherlandish_painting [Sept 2005]

    See also: Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting (1953).

    Bosch is supposedly not a "Flemish Primitive" nor a "Renaissance" painter, he is sui generis, which is an expensive word for unique.

    See also: 1400s - 1500s - art history - Netherlands - Belgium

    2005, Sep 08; 11:10 ::: Modern Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1982) - Meyer Schapiro

    Modern Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1982) - Meyer Schapiro [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

    See also: 1800s - 1900s - art history - modern art

    2005, Sep 08; 11:10 ::: Courbet and Popular Imagery (1942) - Meyer Schapiro

    The classic essay on Courbet's use of popular imagery is Meyer Schapiro's "Courbet and Popular Imagery" originally published in the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 4 (1940-41) pp.161-91. --http://19thc-artworldwide.org/winter_03/articles/coug.html [Sept 2005]

    Meyer Schapiro
    Meyer Schapiro was a 20th century art historian. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Schapiro [Sept 2005]

    See also: art history - popular - image - culture - visual culture

    2005, Sep 08; 09:23 ::: Culture is War (1995) - Leo De Haes

    Culture is War is a 1995 Dutch-language essay by Leo De Haes. It focuses on cultural pessimism through the ages, and more specifically on pessimism in Belgium regarding the effects of "televison culture" and "visual culture" which came about in the late 1980s and 1990s. At that time, Belgium started to broadcast the video-clips of MTV and more importantly allowed air time to the first commercial (as opposed to state funded) television station VTM.

    Today, the "dumbing down" debate with regard to "visual" versus "written" culture has largely subsided, due to the rise of the internet, which is largely a "word culture" (webpages, email, chat). Cultural pessimism, however, continues to exist.

    From the introduction:

    Let me show you that the ever maligned commercial visual culture is richer than it is generally believed to be and that most judgement of mass culture suffers from empty, superficial concepts. It is not mass culture which is poor, but the theory and theorists surrounding it.

    In the second chapter I will investigate the nature of elite culture, and more specifically the gap between mass culture and elite culture, how this gap came about and how to transcend this conundrum. This chapter cannot but focus on the influence of the artistic guerilla of the historical avant-garde.

    The third chapter digs deeper en questions the perceived opposition between "word culture" and "visual culture", showing that this opposition is out of place and even dangerous: culture is always "visual", every (new) culture is about representation and wages war against previous cultures with a new "image" of humanity and society at stake.

    --Leo De Haes via Cultuur is Oorlog (1995) http://www.brakkehond.be/redactie/leovwd.html [Sept 2005]

    See also: Leo De Haes - pessimism - optimism - culture - visual culture - war

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