The subtitle of this book says it all: "Fantasies of the Feminine in Fin-de-Siecle Culture." Sadly though, so much of what this book contains may have began as fantasy but ended with reality.
Though an older book, this is not one to soon forget or an excuse not to buy and read and read again and again. Here is a book that speaks of the cult of the pale and dying Ophelia, the original grunge Gen Xer, all pale and tottering with a "vampire gaze", as if she were high on heroin and about to fade.
Women, in the late 1800s and early 1900s as now, somewhat, were creatures to be both revered and feared. In any event, they were creatures, quite unlike their male counterpart. Women were wracked with nervous self-doubt yet still managed to hold in their dark and wan eyes all the wiles of death. Look at any of the paintings of our Ophelia, and find her with her hair full of nettles, a vampire look in her eyes - clearly a threat - or floating away as the story has it, on a watery grave surrounded on all sides by flowers yet oddly erotic.
In Madeline Lamaire's painting, she emerges as if from the soil, full-breasted and lithe, her light hair plaited, she is ready for the want of any necrophiliac who will have her, and we know our Ophelia is dying, yet she appears curiously strong and healthy - almost Teutonic. Take to the max and take Sarah Bernhard's "coffin portrait" of the 1870s, where she lays, beautiful and young, surrounded by lilies and emaciated. Ophelia was every woman and every man's fetish of the time. Even the French cosmetics firm Houbigant had great success when they created a powder called "Poudre Ophelia", a powder that would "create the outward appearance of being as decorously pale and fragile as any true Ophelia."
Was it because of their real strength that women took on the role of the pale and dying and helpless creature? To appear less of a threat to the men they supported, women would lay about all day, not eating, dying of odd diseases; weird and wonderful things that meant basically starving to death. God, weren't they beautiful while they were doing it? They were fragile, helpless, and a fitting partner and the modern equivalent to the men who had once feared women.
Article comments
1 - Maria Therese Mora
One must be very valent and brave to face that unnamable Monster called in that book self-indulgence.It is something that most people is unable to admit and when it appears it allways somebodyelse who make it ,never oneself..
But I wonder why Professor Dijkstra defends women and if a work that took him 30 years was just the result of a philanthropist sharing his knowledge in order to make a better world or maybe he wanted to be appreciated by women,or maybe both things.From love to hate there is a step and the worst thing that you can make to a person is make her ffall in love with him .
When I was a young girl and I din´t understand about sexuality I had to look for information about how a girl must behave in love (only passivity?)so i found in Endocrinology books the answer:Male´s rol is to show off,figth with the others males,showing this way they were the moststronge and the most clever just because this way they court females.on the other hand the book said that females that see that courtship became receptive wether they want it or not .So :camino de España ,camino de flores....In other words "man in his duty to fascinate women in order to subyugate her"
2 - Maria Therese Mora
And if that is not the case I will feel very sorry but I feel betrayed from the best person I have ever know who is not Greg but Bram.
3 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hi Maria:
That's just an interesting take on the book - it is no doubt a complicated book - I'm not sure that man's role is to "subjugate women" as you note; the whole book is essentially about Victorian notions of women - consumption, the Ophelia complex and so on... i'm not so sure it applies to contemporary times - at least, i certainly hope not, and certainly not in my life. I hope not in yours either...
thanks for reading this - and be well....
s.r.p.
4 - Maria Therese Mora
I don´t know if someone is interested,but if you like Dijkstra you maybe would like some Pilar Pedraza´s books (she is Cathedratic in Art History at University of Valencia (Spain) h.I dislike her essays But I liked very much two novels of her "the Snake´s Jewels" and "The Ruby´s phase"
Me ,like Santi Carrillo are big fans of Diamanda Galás´s works.
And I ,m a big fan of Courtney Love The only clever beautiful annd blonde woman I know precisely because she is a systematical iconoclast of the blonde innocent archetipe.
5 - Maria Therese Mora
My mistake was that I killed the messenger not the message
6 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
what do you mean Maria re: Bram D. - ?
I don't know Pilar Pedreza - can you tell me what those books are about or a specific title is about?
Idols of Perversity is good for some research i'm doing now for another book as it provices context around the Victorian era ... so that's why i'm using it, or have been anyway
There's also a great book called "Women on the Verge" published by Stanford (Cantor Arts Center) (no specific author noted, from what i could tell). It's also a terrific book to read about the Ophelia complex, consumption, women in art at the time etc.
The other book worth noting is called The Hour of Our Death" by Philip Aries - which also speaks so social mores and cultural issues of the time period all the way through the present time. It might be of interest to you....
I don't know what you do for a living (are you a writer as well? I'm a writer, so I do a lot of research, so any books people recommend regarding projects i'm working on I take seriously)....
Would be great to chat more if you're doing similar work.
Be well,
s.r.p.
7 - Maria Therese Mora
Thank you for ansewring me and I´ll try to find the books you told me.
Pilar Pedraza essays are "the beautiful woman:nigthmare,sphinx and panther" and it talks about Füsli,Moreau and the medusa" but it says nothing that I didn´t knew already."Espectra" about the figure of the vampire in literature and movies."Loving machines" a wrong point of view about Neil Gaiman´s "the doll house" and "A game of you" it talks about automats and artificial women ;this is the worse one.
But her novels are really good,"the rubí phase" is about the dualism between sex and religion so about hypocresy.""the snake jewels" is about and alchemical trip of initiation.maybe you won´t find relation with Dijkstra.In that case I read a book called "The Preraphaelite Body" I don´t remember the author but I think it was by Oxford university Press.It is about Rossetti and Burne-Jones and it is related.
I studied Biology and rigth now Im studyng for being biology Professor which let me little time to finish a book based in Dijkstra book from a scientific point of view.Bye will write you soon
8 - Maria Therese Mora
And there is a very young Spanish painter called Victoria Frances that seems to ilustrate Dijkstra books I think her web is called Victoria Frances World,She paint Ophelias,drowning Ladys,Vampires,Death Angels;bleeding brides,phanthoms,burning witches,sick girls and so on
9 - Maria Therese Mora
I f I was somehow guilty in the subject of the children ,for that 3 rule I,m also guilty about the Jew genocide in 2nd World War for doing nothing respect to it,so I won´t make the same mistake again.
10 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hi again,
i don't know that anyone did enough perhaps about the Holocaust during WWII other than what they could once they really found out - as part Jew i find this a difficult topic, so i'm not sure how to discuss this. I'd rather not get into it. I think the main thing is to recognize the signs when it is happening again in other countries and to stop it before it begins again -that to me is the important factor at this point. Let's hope in this case that history does not repeat. If it is, or does, then that is the most disturbing part of all... it should not happen to anyone, Jew or otherwise...
11 - Maria Therese Mora
Yes I agree with you but it happens rigth now ,just look August Pinochet (or Pichochet as somebody called by there) in his country still live some real nazis meanwhile no one cares about the people that lost his family in a concentration camp.When I said that I was guilty I referred to me as a christhian .I Never liked it Christianity is a failure and it is responsible that in a non religious part of the law the criminal has the rigth to be protected and no hurted meanwhile the victim hasn´t got any righth to not to be hurted by the agressor. I mean,how much does it cost that a child to be used in a porn video,Three years? I remember the case of a 11 years old girl raped by a 67 years old man,the he was sent to prison and three years later he was out and went to the pub next to girl house and asked her mother "good morning miss how do your daugther are?" then she pour him with gasoline and ligth it ,the man died,she was valent enougth to go to prison ,she said that the judge wasn´t fair.But judges always follow the christhian precept that when someone hurts you, you must not hurt him
12 - Maria Therese Mora
The main mistake of crhistianism is sthat man is good by nature some people is good,some are bad and the most of us are both the same time,This problem is extensively referred in that great book so misanderstood THe Maldoror´s Chants by Lautreamont .He demostrated the evol of man and Which is the secret of this book?Isodore Ducasse was a French that lived his early years in South America so he was diferent of the rest children of his school,the rest is easy to complete ,he wrote that he cried in his bed hearing over and over a name gived to him ,by the rest of his school companions,that name was "the vampire",he ,being French was pale in contrast with the others that were brunette,he was left out of the human race,he saw evol in children at a very early age he saw them enjoying of his suffering ,And what has christianism has to say about it? that tmen are good and you must love your enemies,and that makes the lie more cruel.Ducasse had no friends ,has no social life and from a freaky he at last became a schizophrenic as his strange wordgames and broken syntaxis let see.
Anyway Im against Death penalty and I don´t generalize evolness to any country,race or religion.
Religion,race, and politics are artificial groups created by men that are looking for using them as excuse to drive his agressivity and destruction trend.They are as artificial as belonging to on football team or the opposit one
A child once asked his mother "mum ,what does baptism is?"The mother ,in a problem asked the child "do you want to be christian?" and he answered "I don´t want to be Christian ,I want to be Spiderman"I think so
13 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hi:
i'm not sure what exactly you are getting at. I am not against organized religion. I think it is up to each person to decide for his or herself. I think non-judgment is the best we can hope to achieve in this society - As to Lautreamot, my husband wrote a book about him called Lautreamont - Nomad, published by Alyscamps Press Lautreamont Nomad by Mark Polizzotti -
As far as my faith goes, i think faith is a very personal issue. I spent all of my undergraudate and some graduate school studying religion and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree (philosphy and religion, not a Bachelor of Arts) - To me, i studed Taoist philosphy (not religion - since there are two branches of Taoism), and i found both compelling.
I also found Henry James most compelling; his book Varities of Ecstatic Experience is one of the most incredible books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.
The death penalty is a thorny issue - and again, a very private issue and i don't get involved in political arguments (especially given that i am not a citizen of the united states so i can't vote anyway, so what i think is of little consequence here). I think that it's tough to determine whether it is a deterrent or not -- also, i do know that it costs more money to keep someone on death row than it does to simply keep them in jail for the rest of their life because of the appeals process, from what I understand (tho again, i could be wrong about this - maybe a lawyer here can help out?) But i have it on pretty good authority that this is the case and it makes sense.
If it does cost more to keep someone on death row as opposed to keeping them alive and in prison for the rest of their lives, then simply for mercenery reasons, (which are not entirely my own, i'd like to point out - again, NOT my own, then i should imagine that would have some bearing on people's decisions.
In the final account, we all live with our easy virtue. Nothing in life is black or white. There are no capital letters - nothing is so simple as Black or White (or few things anyway except for murder, rape and othe extremes etc), but as the to the rest of life, it remains rather murky and shades of grey.
The best we can do then is to negotiate those shades of grey as best we can. It may be difficult. The best book i have read on negotiating these often choppy waters is by C.S. Lewis and it is The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed, both excellent books about a man coming to terms with his faith after a real blow that questions all he held true...
I've said enough here.
maybe too much. thank you.
s.r.p.
14 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
we agree that rapists get an absurd prison sentence - that the low sentence does not fit the crime - that rapists often serve a low sentence most often. Women are often told not to resist, making rape a hard crime to prove (if you don't resist, how do you prove you are then forced - where are your bruises, marks of resistance, and the like?). I find this a difficult construct myself, but then, if someone has a gun to your head and says 'i'll shoot you if you resist' i'm not sure what to do. it's a tough situation.
but yes, rapists serve little time in jail, which is absurd...
15 - Maria Therese Mora
I dislike the common religions probably ,catholicism the one I reject more because I went to a Nuns´s School and I was very disgraced because Christianism is so close to masochism with all their cult of pain,poverty and feel guilty is so absurd.But I love mitology and compared lost religions since I was almost7 years old.I LIke Fraser,Even more Mircea Eliade and this guy that wrote "The God Masks" CAmp?,Huxley wote a book called "The mYstic expirience" that you may like it.HP Lovecraft for me is as important as Darwin.And Neil Gaiman Is the best living writer nowadays.
As you know always Science and Religion have been enemies.But since a few time this fight has end.There are some scientists that can make that any person wearing a special electrodes in his head can have a mystical expirience and watcth God,Virgin Mary,Ala or Budah in 100% of the cases I don´t remember the name of that scientist but I remember that he even sell that Electrodes cap.So if you can meet God face to face without any efford ,what do the world need priests and bishops?
16 - Maria Therese Mora
Excuse Sadi,who is the writer of the new book that will be published in July 15 2008 and whath it is about?
17 - Maria Therese Mora
sorry for my bad English
18 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
dear Maria Therese - you'll have to remind me about which book you are talking about - i don't really understand your question.... are you talking about my book? If so, let me know... if not, please copy the piece of the article you are referring to and i'll do my best to help...
thanks
s.r.p.