Research Catalog

Title

Bitter scrolls : sexist poison in the canon / Peter Heinegg.

Author

Heinegg, Peter,

Publication

Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, c2011.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

162 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

Bitter Scrolls is a broad survey of our "sacred texts," both Holy Writ (Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Qur'an) and secular masterpieces, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the work of William Butler Yeats and D.H. Lawrence, whose canonical status often exempts them from the sort of hardnosed, commonsense criticism that we uniformly apply to contemporary literature and art. A frank look at this literature reveals a stunning combination of bias and blindness toward women. Acknowledging this would, in any case, be painful and depressing; but confronting it in some of our greatest minds--Homer, Aeschylus, Virgil, Boccaccio, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, and so on--must inevitably give rise to profound, if no longer unusual, culture shock. With few exceptions, we can no more remake the canon than we can redesign our family tree, but we need to come to terms with the toxic contents of our art.--From publisher description.

Subject

• Canon (Literature)
• Frauenfeindlichkeit
• Heliga skrifter > sexism
• Kanon
• Kvinnobilden
• Literatur
• Litterär kanon
• Misogyni i litteraturen
• Misogyny in literature
• Sexism i litteraturen
• Sexism in literature
• Sexismus

Note

• Note binding error: p. 8 is missing, but in subsequent paging, odd-numbered pages are on the left and apparently no text is missing.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction: In their own words -- Gilgamesh : off to a very bad start -- The mightiest, manliest murderers -- Clytemnestra's ghost : Aeschylus puts women in their place -- Moses : misogyny in high places -- Paul : Christianity's founder founders -- Muhammad keeps the ladies in line -- Boccaccio and the Renaissance Playboy philosophy -- Rabelais and the triumph of youmanism -- Thoroughly unmodern Willie : Shakespeare's women -- Milton confronts the biblical babe -- Alexander Pope's dissonant classical symphony -- Wordsworth and the helpless female -- Tolstoy's women : barefoot in the dacha -- W.B. Yeats : the last of the red-hot lovers -- D.H. Lawrence : hierophant unhinged -- Salvation through the feminist canon? -- Leftover toxins.

ISBN

• 9780761852889 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0761852883 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2010933279

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library