BooksDirect

Description - Sex and Terror by Pascal Quignard

The fascinus, or phallus, was at the heart of classical Roman art and life. No god was more represented in ancient Rome than the phallic deity Priapus, and the fescennine verses, one of the earliest forms of Roman poetry, accompanied the celebrations of Priapus, the harvest, and fertility. But with this emphasis on virility also came an emphasis on power and ideas of possession and protection.

In Sex and Terror, Pascal Quignard looks closely at this delicate interplay of celebration and terror. In startling and original readings of myths, satires, memoirs, and works of ancient philosophy and visual art, Quignard locates moments of both playful, aesthetic commemoration and outward cruelty.  Through these examples, he describes a colossal cultural shift within Western civilization that occurred two millennia ago, as Augustus shaped the Roman world into an empire and the joyous, precise eroticism of the Greeks turned into a terror-stricken melancholy. The details of this revolution in thinking are revealed through Quignard’s astute analysis of classical literary sources and Roman art.

This powerful transformation from celebration to fear is a change whose consequences, Quignard argues, we are still dealing with today, making Sex and Terror an intriguing reconsideration of ancient Rome that transcends its history.

Buy Sex and Terror by Pascal Quignard from Australia's Online Independent Bookstore, BooksDirect.

A Preview for this title is currently not available.
The Unsaddled
Hardback , Jul '23
RRP: $40.95 $40.13
Villa Amalia
Hardback , Apr '18
RRP: $40.95 $40.13
Mysterious Solidarities
Hardback , Jan '22
RRP: $40.95 $40.13
Abysses
Paperback , Aug '21
RRP: $24.99 $24.49
The Tears
Hardback , Apr '23
RRP: $61.43 $55.28
Pascal Quiqnard - A Terrace in Rome
Paperback , Jul '16
RRP: $34.98 $31.48
Hatred of Music
Hardback , May '16
RRP: $46.95 $42.25
The Fount of Time: The Last Kindom II
Hardback , Jan '23
RRP: $40.95 $36.85