Paralysin cave : impotence, perception, and text in the Satyrica of Petronius /
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This volume explores the literary representation of male sexual dysfunction and discusses the natural and supernatural elements of an ancient folk medical system based on conceptual associations between male sexuality and specific plants, animals and minerals. The work incorporates material from both literary and scientific sources to draw parallels between ancient and modern paradigms of healing. The literary depiction of attempts to remedy impotence demonstrates how an accessibility to cures contributes to the sexual and social reintegration of the sufferer. The Satyrica of Petronius echoes this process by means of the text itself and so effects similar ends. The book provides new insights into literature and the ancient belief systems underlying it with its original and integrative approach to disciplines such as philology, botany, mineralogy, zoology and medicine.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1993. :
1 online resource (x, 272 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-244) and indexes. :
9789004330962 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rūmī and the hermeneutics of eroticism /
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This is the first systematic examination of the esoteric significance of the bawdy tales and explicit sexual passages present in Rūmī's (d. 1273) Mathnawī , a masterpiece of medieval Perso-Islamic mystical literature and theosophic teachings. Using the relevant features of postmodern theories as strategic conceptual tools, and drawing on the recent interpretations of medieval kabbalistic texts, it is a fascinating examination of the link between the dynamics of eroticism and esotericism operative in Rūmī's Mathnawī . In some of these bawdy tales, the phallus is used as an esoteric symbol. The book concludes that these tales are used primarily to communicate esoteric secrets, particularly when this communication is contemplated along gender lines, mediated through erotic imagery, or expressed in sexual terms.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [227]-242) and index. :
9789047422730 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.