Showing papers on "Lust published in 1983"

Psychoactive drugs and sex

Abstract: The search for artificial means of enhancing sexual experience is timeless and can even be found in the opening passages of Genesis (3:7) where Adam and Eve discovered sex as they took a bi te of the forbidden fruit: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. " While others may interpret the "opening of their eyes" as simply an awareness of male and femaleness, John Milton and others regarded the forbidden fruit as an aphrodisiac and in Paradise Lost, described in greater detail what happened: "But the false fruit For other operation first displayed Carnal desire infiarning. He on Eve Began to cast lascivious eyes; she hirn As wantonly repaid; in lust they burn. " Not only did Milton regard the "forbidden fruit" as an aphro- disiac, he also identified it as an apple, and an apple it has re- mained until this day. Sexual behavior has always been one of the most fascinating and attention-arresting activities in human history and there has been no decrease in the fascination and curiosity it still arouses in the human psyche. 1 2 Introduction As timeless as the topic of sexual behavior is that of aphro- disiacs. For example, after the "forbidden fmit," the Bible specifi- cally identified mandrake as an aphrodisiac (Genesis 30:14-17): "And Reuben went, in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah.

From Foul Sheets to Legitimate Model: Antitheater, Text, Ben Jonson

Abstract: YW ^rIHEN Philip Sidney praises dramatic poetry as an art of imitation, he speaks of it as "a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth" whose dual purpose is "to teach and delight."1 Sidney is not unique, of course, in extolling poetic representation, figures, and counterfeits as didactic devices. He is speaking from within a tradition of texts by Aristotle, Horace, and Scaliger. Nor is Sidney's Apology for Poetry the sole treatise in Renaissance England to ponder the significance of counterfeiting as a poetic norm and model teaching method. The pens of a group of polemical writers-John Northbrook, Stephen Gosson, and a myriad of other polemicists and preachers-spilled much ink in evaluating what and how counterfeiting teaches. Yet the intent of these essayists was not, like Sidney's, to link representation "to the highest end of the mistress knowledge ... in the knowledge of man's self, in the ethnic and politic consideration, with the end of well doing and not of well knowing only."2 Rather, Northbrook, Gosson, and their seventeenth-century counterpart William Prynne, who defined themselves as critics of the theater, recognized the end of dramatic counterfeiting to be the imitation of "noysome" lust, the visitation of stews and the solicitation of dolls common rather than the knowing and well doing of mistress knowledge. These critics of the theater do not debate Sidney's claim that dramatic poetry is an art of imitation, that its counterfeiting teaches the spectator how to know and perform things. The persuasiveness of such teaching is the source of their antitheatrical fear and their critique of dramatic counterfeiting. In admitting that plays teach even the art of counterfeit that so motivates drama, John Northbrook worries about the dangerous and infectious consequences of such instruction: "If you will learne howe to bee false and deceyve your husbands, or husbands their wyves, howe to beguyle, howe to betraye, to flatter, lye, sweare, to disobey and rebell against princes ... shall not you learne, then, at such interludes how to practice them?"3 So potent is the theatrical infection described by Northbrook that it cannot be attributed to any one aspect of dramatic spectacle and life.

Langland's "Kynde Knowyng" and the Quest for Christ

Abstract: "Vnholy of werkes" (prologue 3) as he calls himself, he knows his sins already. What he wants to find out is whatever it takes to believe in Christ. When he learns that, then he believes he will be able to do Christ's will and save his soul (1.84). Perhaps so many critics have discussed this request briefly, if at all, because so many of Will's interlocutors, beginning with Holy Church, ignore it. Rather, they invert it. Where he says that he wishes to know God so that he might obey the Law, they tell him to obey the Law so that he might know God. Whoever is "trewe of his tonge," says Holy Church, becomes "a god" and "ylik to oure lord" (1.88-91). Or, as a recent critic puts it, "the knowledge is to come ... through love.'"2 Similarly, in another time and country, Father Zossima will tell a lady who has lost her faith, "If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul."3 A long tradition in Piers Plowman criticism, then, understands the dreamer as unreliable because he has a "lust for knowledge" when he really needs "spiritual understanding."'4 He begins by seeking "theoretical" knowledge but must learn that he can get what he needs only by beginning to love.5 Thus, he must discover his sinful condition.6

Roman Sports Violence

Abstract: The idealists of modern sports—Pierre de Coubertin, for instance, or Avery Brundage —have often made conscious use of verbal and nonverbal symbolism derived from the athletic rituals of ancient Greece. The revival of the discus throw and the creation of the marathon are two examples of idealistic historicism; the torch ignited by the sun at the altar of Zeus in Olympia and carried by relay runners to the site of the modern games is another. Coubertin (1894/1966) himself contrasted “l’athlete d’Olympie” with his ignoble counterpart, the “gladiateur de cirque” Other commentators, disillusioned with the nationalism, commercialism, political instrumentalization, and sheer violence of 20th-century sports, have consistently drawn their analogies not from Delphi and Olympia but rather from Rome and Constantinople. Football players are routinely likened to gladiators and the crowds enthralled by the Indianapolis races or by the Tour de France are said to lust for partem et circenses. Critics of modern violence have referred to ancient gore and have concluded in dismay that we too are in a phase of decadent decline or, worse yet, that humankind is biologically programmed to commit mayhem upon itself.

The Lust for Power: Nationalism, Slovakia, and the Communists, 1918-1948

Abstract: An important study of the confrontation between Slovak nationalism and Slovak communism and their influence on one another by a leading specialist on the history and politics of Slovakia.

The Collected Stories

Abstract: This unique edition presents the complete span of Thomas's short stories, from his urgent hallucinatory visions of the dark forces beneath the surface of Welsh life to the inimitable comedy of his later autobiographical writings. With PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG and ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE, Thomas found a new voice for his irreverent memories of lust and bravado in south-west Wales and London, leading to a sequence of classic evocations of childhood magic and the follies of adult life.

Rogues, rascals and scoundrels: The underworld literature of Early America

Abstract: In 1699 Cotton Mather published a narrative anthology titled Pillars of Salt, which he advertised as a "history of some criminals executed in this land for capital crimes with some of their dying speeches collected and published for the warning of such as live in destructive courses of ungodliness." Among the dozen criminal histories included were the story of a young woman executed twice (the first time having failed to produce the desired effect); the story of a sixty-year-old man who was turned in and testified against by his own son for bestiality, a crime which he later confessed having regularly practiced for fifty years and for which both he and the "offending" animals were all executed; the story of two servants who murdered their master with an ax in order to prove whether he was really "flesh and blood" like themselves; and the story of a man who murdered his pregnant wife by cutting her throat with a pocket knife. Mather described these unfortunate individuals and their even more unfortunate crimes in order to edify and terrify his readers by illustrating the inevitability of stern judgment—first man's , then God's. Indeed, the executions and dying confessions became triumphs of holiness, proofs of God's victory over Satan and of good over evil. Nevertheless, in case anyone missed the clear didactic message and accused Mather of exploiting sensational stories simply to further establish himself as Boston's leading author, he carefully included the ultimate justification for publishing stories of lust, crime, violence and "ungodliness." He wrote: "Tis possible, the author of the ensuing Discourse . . . may be asked a reason

Some reflections on the house of busyrane

Abstract: I N The Kindly Flame (1964), a book devoted to the study of the third and fourth books of The Faerie Queene, Thomas Roche began his brief discussion of the House of Busyrane by saying 'Since Britomart represents chastity, Busyrane is generally interpreted as lust, but here we run into difficulties. The whole episode is extremely problematical' (p. 73). His own view is given categorically. He provides 'proof' of its rightness by his interpretation of a line in the following book (iv. i. 3), which he took to mean that 'Busyrane has got possession of Amoret's mind'. Consequently, 'the House of Busyrane is presented as if it were an objectification of Amoret's fear of sexual love in marriage' (p. 77). This interpretation was first put forward thirty years before by Janet Spens in Spenser's Faerie Queene (1934), who wrote, again rather optimistically, 'There has been some discussion of the meaning of Amoret's experience, but there can, I think, be little doubt'. Supporting her interpretation by quotations from the Amoretti, she declared:

III. Why Lust for Power

Abstract: I am glad Professor Henryk Skolimowski has taken up the subject of power and contributed so many thought-provoking ideas about it;* for to me the phenomenon of power presented itself initially as a complete mysterywhat it is and why anyone should want it. Power is, of course, distinct from, though closely connected with, domination, aggression, vandalism, cruelty and violence. And these can be individual or group phenomena. I t is desirable first to hive them off. Domination is a common, age-old, and well recognized phenomenon. Individuals dominate other individuals, groups, political parties and countries. Domination is often suavely managed, often nastily. In many people's minds, the notion often acquires an unpleasant meaning through overlooking its more benign forms. There is the question, however, whether even any benign form is or should be acceptable. The Duke of Plazatoro was dominated by his Duchess and -just possibly, though it is unlikely she never made him do anything against the grain or even against his wishes. And one can think of other cases where the husband had to be, SO to speak, 'organized', or he would have been helpless and in endless trouble. Nonetheless, the Duke, however little ill-treated, must have lost his self-respect (or, if he had never had it, was given no opportunity of developing it). And I am inclined to think that the same holds of the mildest cases, of those gently manoeuvred for their own good. I shall not tQ to weigh the negative effect on the character under vassalage against the positive value of the mild domination necessary to keep the person afloat. Let us be content with saying that such domination is a more or less acceptable form of power, We may note that in this form it is used for the sake of another partythough it also gives satisfhction to the one who has the influence. It is different where one individual seeks to dominate others for his o m ends. There may be degrees of claims that the power: is exercised for the sake of those others. Great Britain's imperial domination was held,to promote Pax Britannica, to curb barbarity, and to introduce some civilization,