Harems of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Cloth, xii, 314 pages, [48] pages of plates, illustrations (some colour); 25 cm. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. A fine copy of the first printing. "Fascinating and mysterious, the idea of the harem long captured the imagination of the West. The Muslim practice of concealing the women of the household from the eyes of alien men tempted Europeans to extravagant projections of their own wishes and fears. This intriguing book examines the art that resulted. Drawing on a wide range of evidence from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth century--including travel writing, literature, painting, and even opera--Ruth Bernard Yeazell demonstrates the surprising variety of expressions inspired by the harem of the Western imagination. The book provides both a rich account of changing perceptions of the harem and a demonstration of the tenacious persistence of myth and stereotype. Yeazell shows that Europe's hunger for facts about the harem combined repeatedly with the impulse to fantasize. Masculine erotic fantasies of the harem were reflected in the paintings of Ingres and Delacroix, the writings of de Sade, Byron, and Loti, and the work of anonymous pornographers. Alternate representations portrayed the harem as a prison or a locus of freedom, a place of murderous rivalry or a home of loving sisterhood, a chamber of erotic license or a nightmarish snare of frustration and ennui. And Montesquieu, Mozart, and Charlotte Bront among others explored in their art the opposition of the imaginary pleasures of the harem to the freely chosen union of a loving couple. In a nuanced reading of Ingres's Bain turc and other works, Yeazell concludes that for some the appeal of the harem lay in the fantasy of eluding time and death. / Ruth Bernard Yeazell is Chace Family Professor of English and director of the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Some travelers' tales; Seeing it all : Ingres and Delacroixl Documenting the harem from Bajazet to the Bain turc; The fantastic facts of Les desenchantees; A prison for slaves; Rebellion in the serail of Montesquieu's Persian; Visions of oppression from Wollstonecraft to Nightingale; Looking for liberty: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Victorians Pleasure in numbers; A climate for pornography; Multiplying effects: lesbians and eunuchs; Anti-erotics : frustration and ennui; Free hearts in Montesquieu, Mozart, and Bryon; Taming Soliman and other great ones; Leaving the harem behind; Plotting jealousy from Racine to the Victorians; Manley's Almyna and other dreams of sisterhood; Disenchantments with the myth; Celebrations of domestic virtue; John Frederick Lewis and the art of the Victorian harem; The pastness of the Orient; The lesson of the Bain turc. . 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.