Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters)

Reading the Sphinx unearths buried conflicts in religion, myth, and the memory of Egypt in the West, illuminating issues of identity, inheritance, gender, and sexuality through cultural productions ranging from Herodotus to Freud. Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 9 Introduction......Page 10 1 The Egyptomania Craze: From Wedgwood China to the Washington Monument......Page 26 2 Tales from the Crypt: Theories of Cultural Burial......Page 54 3 The Exquisite Corpse: Nineteenth-Century Literary Revivals......Page 78 4 The Empire of the Imagination: Egypt and Esoterica......Page 100 5 Strangers in a Strange Land: Travelers in Egypt......Page 132 6 Oedipus Aegyptiacus: Egypt and Early Psychology......Page 156 Afterlives......Page 180 Works Cited......Page 188 B......Page 200 D......Page 201 F......Page 202 I......Page 203 M......Page 204 O......Page 205 S......Page 206 Z......Page 207 Author Biography......Page 208 "Reading the Sphinx unearths a buried cultural history haunted by Egyptian ghosts, Lynn Parramore examines issues of western identity, inheritance, gender, and sexuality through the interlocking stories of nineteenth-century collectors, conjurers, artists, travelers, and psychic explorers as they encounter Egyptian antiquity. Bringing together cultural analysis, literary history, and psychology, Parramore explores the productions of a wide range, of fascinating figures, from Herodotus to Freud. Reading the Sphinx is a new cultural history that traces the suppression, distortion, and, ultimately, the resurrection of maternal powers from the crypt of memory."--BOOK JACKET