In The Motion of the Heart and Blood (1653), William Harvey had set forth the scientific model of a phallic, generative organ pumping blood through a feminized body; in Paradise Lost, it is through the protracted rape and violation of Eve's heart that the Fall of Man occurs; nearly a century later Samuel Richardson's Clarissa would present a no less forceful but far more feminist and heroic narrative of the heart's power. Examining these other-and mostly English-literary, medical, religious, and philosophical texts, Erickson uncovers two ruling clusters of metaphors: one associating the heart with language, writing, and thought, the other with sex, passion, and gender. Charting the tension between the two, he offers a brilliant new reading of one of the central symbols in Western culture.
| ISBN: | 9780812233940 |
| Publication date: | 29th January 1997 |
| Author: | Robert A Erickson |
| Publisher: | University of Pennsylvania Press an imprint of University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc. |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 273 pages |
| Series: | New Cultural Studies |
| Genres: |
Literature: history and criticism |