Book of the SphinxUniversity of Nebraska Press, 2004 - 297 pages Sought, 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. 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. |
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Alexandria ancient Ancient Egypt angel answer Apollo Apollodorus asks Athenaeus beast beautiful body Caesar carved century Cherubim Christian circa claws Clement Cleopatra death Delcourt Demisch Description de l'Égypte divine dream Edipe edited Egypt Egyptian Engraving enigma Esfinge eternal eyes F. C. S. Schiller Fable face father feet Félicien Rops Freud Gallimard Gautier German gods Greece Greek Hassan Hauptmann head Hegel Horemakhet Hugo human Ingres John Jung kill king Kircher l'énigme Laius Le Sphinx legend Lehner Les misérables lion London looks monster Moret mother Museum mystery myth Napoleon Nile Oedi Oedipus Aegyptiacus Oedipus complex Oedipus's painted Paris paws Péladan pharaohs Phix Poems Postcard pyramids questions Quincey riddle scene Robert Roman sand says Schuré secret smile Sophocles Sphinx of Giza stone story Stromata symbol of symbols tarot temple Theban Thebes tion Translated Unamuno University Press vols wings woman wrote York