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A review by holodoxa
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia
4.0
Camille Paglia is an impressive and unruly heterodox thinker and a remarkable character to boot. Despite mentorship and support from the eminent literary critic and professor Harold Bloom, she flitted around the fringes of academia for much of her career only to eventually break out as a public intellectual through her commentary work at Salon and her seminal book Sexual Personae. Today, it seems she is mostly read (and watched) by right-of-center politicos and scholars and seems to have entered a quiet retirement. I'd love to see a Paglia renaissance after reading Sexual Persona. It is rare that an embattled academic in the humanities can turn his or her thesis around into a best-selling book, especially without sacrificing sophistication or complexity.
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson is a pioneering work of critical revisionism that selectively surveys the Western canon of art and literature. It's an effort to force cosseted academics to confront the reality of human nature, and its manifestations in particular types of art. Paglia argues that the central thematic conflict in Western culture is the Hegelian struggle between the Apollonian (reason, order, symmetry) and the Dionysian (chaos, disorder, nature), where the former should be generally read as masculine and the latter as feminine. She specifies this claim with the Freudian assertion that the impetus of this conflict is male anxiety about inherent female power - fear of [b:The Great Mother|1282241|The Great Mother An Analysis of the Archetype (Bollingen)|Erich Neumann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1207550923l/1282241._SX50_.jpg|590606]The Great Mother. Paglia cites humanity's biology, our ancient customs, and various archetypal sexual personae (e.g. the androgyne, beautiful boy, male heroine, pythoness, epicene man of beauty, etc) or cultural peculiarities (the Western "eye" and sadism) as the other contributing sources and manifestations of this conflict. Paglia strongly contends that there is an unbroken line between antiquity and modern Western art (compared to the more accepted narrative that Christian art was a departure from pagan art and subsequent to Modernism traditions are fragmenting).
Paglia's thesis here is characteristically choatic and compelling. From one perspective, I think her arguments are incredible incisive. There is a long history of literary scholarship and criticism that strips out much of art's chthonian qualities. These sanitizers, puritans, scolds, and ideologues can be found in all schools of literary thought and artistic production. Hence, there is plenty of artifacts themselves that are neutered or beset by a "false consciousness" of sorts. The hegemons of institutional literary culture today are almost invariably of this ilk, meaning Paglia's project has unfortunately failed for the time being. From an alternative perspective, Paglia claims are vulnerable to attack. For instance, the reliance on Freudian concepts are critical weak points. Literature and art have kept Freud on life support for decades because they are mostly fantasies (or nightmares) untethered from any psychological reality, though this was published in 1990 somewhat before the deep dismantling of Freud. There are periodically wild or almost outlandish claims scattered throughout the work that are clear instances of Paglia overextending pet theories/readings or aggressively pushing the envelope. Regardless, I think the warts of Sexual Personae make it a more compelling read.
But what really makes Sexual Personae worth the read is the front row seat to Paglia's tour through art and literature. Her interpretation, analysis, and commentary is never dull, and she provides one of the most interesting perspectives on Romantic literature (and its rapid turn to Decadence) I've read. The limitations (or lack thereof) that innate subjectivity force on literary theory and criticism places a burden on the theorist/critic to be provocative in a vulnerable way, by which I mean the theorist/critic should avoid trying to obscure their actual claims. This is the crucial test that Paglia passes despite some instances of ambiguous and jargony prose.
In finishing Sexual Personae, I think the study and appreciation of literature and art could be some reinvigorated if we transported a bit more Paglia into literary pedagogy. Our current offerings are stifling, unimaginative, or obscurant. Paglia forces us to confront uncomfortable questions instead of mouthing pieties. Pick up a copy of Sexual Personae and delve deep into the "The Garden of Earthly Delights."
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson is a pioneering work of critical revisionism that selectively surveys the Western canon of art and literature. It's an effort to force cosseted academics to confront the reality of human nature, and its manifestations in particular types of art. Paglia argues that the central thematic conflict in Western culture is the Hegelian struggle between the Apollonian (reason, order, symmetry) and the Dionysian (chaos, disorder, nature), where the former should be generally read as masculine and the latter as feminine. She specifies this claim with the Freudian assertion that the impetus of this conflict is male anxiety about inherent female power - fear of [b:The Great Mother|1282241|The Great Mother An Analysis of the Archetype (Bollingen)|Erich Neumann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1207550923l/1282241._SX50_.jpg|590606]The Great Mother. Paglia cites humanity's biology, our ancient customs, and various archetypal sexual personae (e.g. the androgyne, beautiful boy, male heroine, pythoness, epicene man of beauty, etc) or cultural peculiarities (the Western "eye" and sadism) as the other contributing sources and manifestations of this conflict. Paglia strongly contends that there is an unbroken line between antiquity and modern Western art (compared to the more accepted narrative that Christian art was a departure from pagan art and subsequent to Modernism traditions are fragmenting).
Paglia's thesis here is characteristically choatic and compelling. From one perspective, I think her arguments are incredible incisive. There is a long history of literary scholarship and criticism that strips out much of art's chthonian qualities. These sanitizers, puritans, scolds, and ideologues can be found in all schools of literary thought and artistic production. Hence, there is plenty of artifacts themselves that are neutered or beset by a "false consciousness" of sorts. The hegemons of institutional literary culture today are almost invariably of this ilk, meaning Paglia's project has unfortunately failed for the time being. From an alternative perspective, Paglia claims are vulnerable to attack. For instance, the reliance on Freudian concepts are critical weak points. Literature and art have kept Freud on life support for decades because they are mostly fantasies (or nightmares) untethered from any psychological reality, though this was published in 1990 somewhat before the deep dismantling of Freud. There are periodically wild or almost outlandish claims scattered throughout the work that are clear instances of Paglia overextending pet theories/readings or aggressively pushing the envelope. Regardless, I think the warts of Sexual Personae make it a more compelling read.
But what really makes Sexual Personae worth the read is the front row seat to Paglia's tour through art and literature. Her interpretation, analysis, and commentary is never dull, and she provides one of the most interesting perspectives on Romantic literature (and its rapid turn to Decadence) I've read. The limitations (or lack thereof) that innate subjectivity force on literary theory and criticism places a burden on the theorist/critic to be provocative in a vulnerable way, by which I mean the theorist/critic should avoid trying to obscure their actual claims. This is the crucial test that Paglia passes despite some instances of ambiguous and jargony prose.
In finishing Sexual Personae, I think the study and appreciation of literature and art could be some reinvigorated if we transported a bit more Paglia into literary pedagogy. Our current offerings are stifling, unimaginative, or obscurant. Paglia forces us to confront uncomfortable questions instead of mouthing pieties. Pick up a copy of Sexual Personae and delve deep into the "The Garden of Earthly Delights."