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Overview'A dazzling and invigorating book' - Guardian 'Why should Truth be a woman? Or Nature? Or Justice? Or Liberty? Not, certainly, because women have been more free, just, truthful, nor even (though this one has a double edge) more natural. Marina Warner sets out to breathe some life into the army of petrified personages that litters western cityscapes... As her book shows, these stony ladies can be persuaded to yield surprisingly interesting answers' - Lorna Sage, Observer An entertaining and enlightening book about the relationship between allegory and female form from one of the great feminists and cultural historians of our time, Marina Warner. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Marina WarnerPublisher: Vintage Publishing Imprint: Vintage Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 12.90cm , Height: 2.90cm , Length: 19.80cm Weight: 0.341kg ISBN: 9780099588818ISBN 10: 0099588811 Pages: 496 Publication Date: 01 February 1996 Recommended Age: From 0 years Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General , Tertiary & Higher Education Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of ContentsReviewsA book to change the way we see the world, and the place of women in it * Literary Review * Even the most sceptical will be struck by the insights, and forced to think about the questions raised. They lead naturally into an exploration of the nature of the feminine itself * Sunday Telegraph * Marina Warner examines three very different uses of the female form: New York's statue of Liberty, the public sculptures of central Paris and the images of Mrs Thatcher favoured by Fleet Street. The latter is one of the most brilliant analyses in the book, displaying Warner's combination of wit and erudition at its most dazzling * Financial Times * An eye-opening and wonderfully readable study -- Mary Beard * Daily Express * An eye-opening and wonderfully readable study -- Mary Beard * Daily Express * Marina Warner examines three very different uses of the female form: New York's statue of Liberty, the public sculptures of central Paris and the images of Mrs Thatcher favoured by Fleet Street. The latter is one of the most brilliant analyses in the book, displaying Warner's combination of wit and erudition at its most dazzling * Financial Times * Even the most sceptical will be struck by the insights, and forced to think about the questions raised. They lead naturally into an exploration of the nature of the feminine itself * Sunday Telegraph * A book to change the way we see the world, and the place of women in it * Literary Review * Here's a super intelligent woman author who doesn't pander to the polemic of feminist politics about injustices inflicted by men since the dawn of homo. She's written a highly literate, superbly documented, readable analysis about the central paradox of the female form and what it has represented throughout history. Warner's previous works (Alone of All Her Sex, and her latest novel The Skating Party) have laid the groundwork for this noteworthy effort about the plural significances attached to womens' bodies and the fantasies, longings, and terror projected into and about them. This is no dull, archaic, boring work of old-time scholasticism - Monuments and Maidens is alive with visual analogies, careful substantiation, and fresh insight in a contemporary approach, although limited by brevity and Warner's own predilections (a Brit, bred in Egypt). The shield of Achilles given him by Athena is not just the aegis of Medusa or Freud's metaphor for male castration complex, but a force field a al hi Darth Vader emitting chilling darkness and thunderclouds. Wonder Woman, Princess Leia Organa of Star Wars and Leela of TV's Dr. Who are all metaphors for the biblical Judith slaying Holofernes - the embodiment of the chaste goddess-warrior. Maggie Thatcher, England's Iron Lady, becomes Boadicia - redhaired fierce leader of the Britons who takes poison rather than become a slave to Rome. Warner goads and pricks our intellects while raising controversial and not easily answered questions. Why does the faithfulness required of men like Ulysses not include the chastity of his body as it does in the case of Penelope, his wife? Why should the modern world snigger at the intact chastity of Lady Godiva - while the seminaked and naked female form sells soap, cars, drinks and whatever? Warner raises the issue and theory that perhaps women develop a persona (exaggerated ferocity, aggressiveness, assuming traditionally male dominated aspects) according to man's code of values just to protect themselves from that very code. From Delacroix's parody of Liberty - breasts bared, brandishing the tricolor and flintlock to Mae West as the Statue of Liberty and universal mother, this is thought-provoking, informative, insightful. (Kirkus Reviews) This book, which won the Fawcett Prize on first publication, is the third of Marina Warner's studies of female symbolism. Here she asks why, in Western iconography, abstract virtues such as Truth, Justice and Liberty have been allegorized in the female form. Beginning with three case studies - the Statue of Liberty, the public statuary of central Paris and Fleet Street's treatment of Margaret Thatcher during her heyday - Warner concludes that men have used stereotyped images of women in public symbolism, while ignoring or distorting their actual historical situation. In subsequent chapters, Warner demonstrates, with detailed analysis of examples from the whole of Western culture (particularly painting, sculpture and literature), how men have projected their dreams, longing and ideals onto the female body. Looking at major figures from Western allegory such as Athena, Nike and Pandora, she shows how the female body has been used to embody qualities which became destructive to women in their daily lives. Yet, she explains, symbols are always in flux, and some women, from Hildegard von Bingen to the Greenham Common protesters, have appropriated or overturned male symbolism and taken back female power. Hope for the future, she concludes, lies not with a radical dismissal of all portrayals of the female body but with women artists who can reclaim the body from male stereotyping and with those of both sexes who can acknowledge the body as a vehicle of possibility rather than reaction. This is a book with an immense sweep, questioning the very myths on which Western civilization is founded and tracing those myths up to the present day, as they still appear in advertising and popular media. It is a work of art history but also a work of feminist cultural anthropology, and it deserves to stand with the classics of cultural studies. (Kirkus UK) A book to change the way we see the world, and the place of women in it. - Literary Review <br> Marina Warner examines three very different allegorical uses of the female form: New York's Statue of Liberty, the public sculptures of central Paris and the images of Mrs. Thatcher favoured by Fleet Street. The latter is one of the <br>most brilliant analyses of the book, displaying Ms. Warner's combination of wit and erudition at its most dazzling. - Financial Times Author InformationMarina Warner spent her early years in Cairo, and was educated at a convent in Berkshire, and then in Brussels and London, before studying modern languages at Oxford. She is an internationally acclaimed cultural historian, critic, novelist and short story writer. From her early books on the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc, to her bestselling studies of fairy tales and folk stories, From the Beast to the Blonde and No Go the Bogeyman, her work has explored different figures in myth and fairy tale and the art and literature they have inspired. She lectures widely in Europe, the United States and the Middle East, and is currently Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex. She was appointed CBE in 2008. www.marinawarner.com Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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