|
Lucy Mangan tells us how E.L. James' Fifty Shades trilogy is
actually part of a long tradition of titillating titles
What is erotica? For the purposes of this piece, let’s say
it is written material designed primarily to arouse. Unless you count the
Old Testament’s strangely sensual Song of Songs (in which case,
congratulations and commiserations on the hair-trigger sensitivity of your
libido), our salacious story begins with the ancient Greeks, whose Straton
of Sardis produced an anthology of erotic epigrams entitled The Boyish
Muse. He has since been overshadowed by Sappho, a female poet from the
island of Lesbos, from whose name and proclivities (at least as they were
perceived by later readers) we get the terms ‘sapphic’ and ‘lesbian’. When
an entire sexual orientation is named in your honour, you know you’ve made
it.
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment