Book of the SphinxSought, the Sphinx seems everywhere, whether the guardian of the pyramids on Egypt's Giza plateau or the beautiful man-eater with a deadly riddle, to be approached with awful caution. The Sphinx, that icon painted, sculpted, engraved, and exalted in poetry, fiction, and music, so impressed the philosopher Hegel that he pronounced the creature ?the symbol of the symbolic itself.? With a wealth of illustrations, Book of the Sphinx confirms Hegel's lofty judgment, finding the Sphinx everywhere: in tragedies, paintings, opera, murder mysteries, brothels, bars, and advertisements. ø Pursuing the Sphinx through kaleidoscopic sightings and encyclopedic observations, Willis Goth Regier plumbs the symbol's mysteries, conducting the reader down ever more perplexing and intriguing paths. Wonderfully readable, his highly idiosyncratic tour of the ages and the arts leads at last to a conception of the Sphinx that embraces nothing less than all that is unknowable?proving once again that confronting a Sphinx is one of the most dangerous and exhilarating adventures of the imagination. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Alexandria ancient angel answer Apollo Apollodorus asks beast beautiful body Caesar carved century Cherubim circa claws Cleopatra Creon death Demisch divine dream Edipe Egypt Egyptian Engraving enigma Esfinge eternal eyes F. C. S. Schiller Fable face father feet female Freud Gautier German gods Greece Greek Hassan Hatshepsut Hauptmann head Hegel Horemakhet Hugo human incest Ingres Jesus Jocasta Jung kill king Kircher l'énigme La curée Laius Lehner Les misérables lion looks makhet monster Moret mother Museum mystery myth Napoleon Nile Odysseus Oedi Oedipus Aegyptiacus Oedipus complex Oedipus Tyrannus Oedipus's painted Paris paws Péladan pharaohs Philo of Alexandria Phix Postcard pyramids questions Quincey riddle scene rock Roman sand says Schuré secret silence Sirens smile Sophocles Sphinx of Giza stone story Stromata symbol of symbols tarot temple Thanks Theban Thebes tion truth Unamuno White Sphinx wings woman women wrote