Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus To Pornography - Softcover

Shattuck, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312146027 ISBN 13: 9780312146023

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 1996

Synopsis

An examination of the meaning of moral responsibility in literature and our everyday lives suggests that we live in a violated world that dismisses taboos. BOMC & History Alt. Reader's Subscription Main. First serial, The New York Times Book Review.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Shattuck is University Professor and Professor of Modern Foreign Languages and Literature at Boston University.

Reviews

In this scholarly, provocative and gracefully written study, Shattuck?a distinguished critic (The Banqueting Years) and translator (of Apollinaire)?argues that there are moral taboos (even if they are sometimes unclearly defined) that we dare violate at our peril, that there are indeed limits?both philosophical and physical?to what humankind is meant to know and experience and that from the very beginnings of civilization, a central theme in our thought and literature has been the struggle to understand what those limits are. The book begins in theory and moves to more concrete examples of "forbidden knowledge," from discussions of myths (Prometheus, Orpheus, Adam and Eve), through the Victorians' perplexity over Darwin, to an examination of works of literature (Faust, Paradise Lost, Billy Budd, Frankenstein, Emily Dickinson's poetry, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Stranger) that indicate a fascination or concern with those limits. The second half of this study focuses on what Shattuck calls case histories of what can happen when those limits are pushed and include discussions of the Manhattan Project, DNA research, genetic engineering, serial killers (Ted Bundy; the so-called Moors Murderer) and finally?and at great length?the Marquis de Sade. The book might seem but a thoughtful warning about the destructive power of de Sade and what Shattuck considers sadistic pornography, but a concluding essay makes it clear that his subject is really the history of human curiosity and of the glories and dangers inherent in trying to learn more than one is prepared for. First serial to the New York Times Book Review; Reader's Subscription Book Club main selection; BOMC and History Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An eminent scholar's exploration of a crucial theme in Western literature and culture: forbidden knowledge. Shattuck (Literature/Boston Univ.) has published many books, including a well-known study of modernism (The Banquet Years, 1968) and a biography (Marcel Proust, 1982) that earned its author the National Book Award. His new book embodies his vision of what literary criticism ought to be (as opposed to current academic trends in literary studies). First, its theme is one of importance to people other than professional literary critics. Second, its language is urbane and engaging. Third, Shattuck writes with originality and imagination yet remains loyal to scholarly standards of evidence and argument. The book traces the problem of forbidden knowledge from its origins in myth and folklore (Prometheus, Pandora, Eve, and Faustus) up through the more modern attempt to deal with its meaning for our moral well-being. He has especially strong chapters on Milton's Paradise Lost, which he sees as a turning point in our understanding of the theme, and Melville's Billy Budd, which he praises by damning comparison with Camus's The Stranger. He also writes about Frankenstein, Emily Dickinson, Mme. de Lafayette. The latter two share the theme of renunciation, the obverse side of the forbidden knowledge topos. The second half of Shattuck's book attempts to negotiate the treacherous pass from literature to real life: Forbidden knowledge as literary theme is supposed to shed light on the moral dilemmas of scientists who worked on the atomic bomb and those who remain at work on the Human Genome Project. Here he is less persuasive. But as a consolation prize we get a wonderfully impassioned chapter against the Marquis de Sade who, according to Shattuck, does not deserve the serious attention that scholars have showered on him. A fine, challenging, and timely work of scholarship and criticism. (First serial to the New York Times Book Review; Book- of-the-Month/History Book Club alternate selections) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Even before Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider made things better with butter in Last Tango in Paris, before Showgirls hit the big screen last year, humanity has been compelled by the forbidden and immoral. Roger Shattuck has written a comprehensive, nuanced exposeof this search for the forbidden throughout the history of Western culture, proving that humanity has been perplexed by the perverse and the proscribed since the origins of civilization, puzzling over this trait through religion, literature, and philosophy. Shattuck develops his thesis by drawing from across the canon, including biblical tales of morality, Milton's Paradise Lost, several versions of Faust, Shelley's Frankenstein, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dickinson, Melville, Camus, and more. Shattuck's work culminates in a painstaking and searing critique of the works of the Marquis de Sade as the ultimate antithesis of the rules of civilization. A brilliant analysis of the history of Western culture, Shattuck's latest work is a cogent, stimulating read. Ted Leventhal

Shattuck (literature, Boston Univ.), the author of The Forbidden Experiment (Kodansha, 1994), enters the culture wars with an examination of the limits of knowledge and the breaking of taboos. Drawing on impressive erudition, he examines the themes of dangerous or forbidden knowledge, the limits of curiosity, and the corrosiveness of doubt in Western literature with detailed examinations of Faust and Frankenstein, as well as Emily Dickinson, Milton, and Melville. In turn, Shattuck examines the special cases of scientific knowledge and sexual liberty. Denying that he is a Luddite, Shattuck offers little about how to curb such knowledge. Nevertheless, he makes an impressive and eloquent case of the dangers of forbidden knowledge and human presumption. For academic collections.?Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312146027
• ISBN 13: 9780312146023
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384