The Girdle of Venus: a Loan. Desire for Beauty, Beautiful Desire

  • Rolf-Peter Janz Freie Universität Berlin
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_RFAL.2015.v23.48829
Keywords: Grace, Hogarth’s Line of Beauty, Tizian’s Venus von Urbino, Good looks against Repression

Abstract

Following an episode in Homer’s Iliad (Juno borrows the girdle of Venus to seduce Jupiter) that Schiller recalls in On Grace and Dignity, this article focuses on the obvious or hidden sex appeal of (female) beauty. Hogarth’s line of beauty reveals that aesthetic experience is associated with erotic attraction. Aesthetic theories around 1800 either welcome this notion or strictly reject it. How much eroticism is at stake when works of Schiller, Horgath, Kleist, Thomas Mann, Robert Walser and Fontane refer to the beauty of the female body?

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Published
2015-04-13
How to Cite
Janz R.-P. (2015). The Girdle of Venus: a Loan. Desire for Beauty, Beautiful Desire. Revista de Filología Alemana, 23, 31-73. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_RFAL.2015.v23.48829
Issue
Vol. 23 (2015)
Section
Articles. Literary Studies

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