The Sexual Revolution in Modern American Literature

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

   PDF

2. Sex, Religion, Science, and Literature

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Introduction

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 3-10

   3. The Science of Psychoanalysis and Sexuality

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 11-22

3. The Naturalistic Eros in America

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

      PDF

   2. The Forerunners of Revolt

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 25-32

   3. Dreiser and Sexual Freedom

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 33-46

   4. Sherwood Anderson: The Phallic Chekhov

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 47-57

   5. Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 58-67

   6. Eugene O’Neill: the Tragedy of Love without God

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 68-81

   7. The Hemingway Cult of Love

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 82-95

   8. Faulkner’s World of Love and Sex

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 96-120

4. The Mystique of Sex in Contemporary American Literature

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 121-121

      PDF

   2. Sex as Salvation

      1. Henry Miller: Prophet of the Sexual Revolution

         • Charles I. Glicksberg

         Pages 123-142

      2. The Sexualized World of the Beat Generation

         • Charles I. Glicksberg

         Pages 143-170

      3. Norman Mailer: Salvation and the Apocalyptic Orgasm

         • Charles I. Glicksberg

         Pages 171-181

   3. The Dialectic of the Sex Mystique

      1. The Death of Love

         • Charles I. Glicksberg

         Pages 185-213

      2. Satyriasis and Nymphomania

         • Charles I. Glicksberg

         Pages 214-222

5. Conclusion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 223-223

      PDF

   2. Conclusion

      • Charles I. Glicksberg

      Pages 225-243

1. The Dialectic of the Sex-Motif in Literature Sex is a function of culture; in literature today it plays only a small though aggressively righteous part. Nature, long held in bondage, periodically breaks out in revolt, but its victory is never complete. In every society, prim­ itive as well as modem, the sexual instinct is for good or evil always subject to some measure of regulation and restraint. In literature, where the battle between love and sex, spirit and flesh, is fought out in terms of symbolic action, the writers support their cause, for or against sexual freedom, with varying degrees of evangelical ardor and outspokenness. On this issue there is no unanimity for the simple reason that American culture is not unified in its beliefs concerning the nature of man. The central conflict between instinctual needs and the claims of the ideal, between physical desire and the inner check, between Dionysus and Christ, goes on all the time. Sublimation is the cultural process whereby sexual energy is deflected from its biological source and diverted into spiritually "higher" and socially more useful channels. But sublimation is for most men hard to achieve. As civilization grows more complex, the individual is exposed to a series of increasingly severe moral strains. Pitted against Nature while subject to its laws, he must hence­ forth be governed in his behavior by inner as well as outer controls.

• English literature
• Jazz
• apocalyptic
• culture
• dialectic
• evolution
• freedom
• individual
• issue
• liberty
• love
• psychoanalysis
• reason
• subject
• time

• Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, USA

  Charles I. Glicksberg

Policies and ethics