The Book of the Courtesans

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0767910826
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (679 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of the Courtesans by : Susan Griffin

Download or read book The Book of the Courtesans written by Susan Griffin and published by Crown. This book was released on 2002-02-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer-Prize-nominated author Susan Griffin comes an unprecedented, provocative look at the dazzling world of the West’s first independent women, whose lively liaisons brought them unspoken influence, wealth, and freedom. While they charmed some of Europe’s most illustrious men honing their social skills as well as their sexual ones, the great courtesans gained riches, power, education, and sexual freedom in a time when other women were denied all of these. From Imperia of sixteenth-century Rome, who personified the Renaissance ideal of beauty; Mme. de Pompadour, the arbiter of all things fashionable in eighteenth-century Paris and Versailles; Liane de Pougy, known in France during the Belle Epoque as “Our National Courtesan”; to Sarah Bernhardt, who, following in her mother’s footsteps, supported herself in her early career with a second profession, The Book of the Courtesans tells the life stories and intricacies of the lavish lifestyles of these women. Unlike their geisha counterparts, courtesans neither lived in brothels nor bent their wills to suit their suitors. They were strong- willed, autonomous, and plucky. An open secret, their presence can be felt throughout our culture. The muses who enflamed the hearts and imaginations of our most celebrated artists, they were also artists in their own right. They wrote poetry and novels, invented the cancan at the Moulin Rouge, and presented celebrated acts at the Folies Bergères. They helped to influence and shape the sensibility of modern literature, painting, and fashion. When Greek sculptor Praxiteles wanted to depict Venus he used a famous courtesan as a model, as in later centuries Titian, Veronese, Raphael, Giorgione, and Boucher did when they painted goddesses. When Marcel Proust was a young man it was the courtesan Laure Hayman who took him under her wing, introducing him to the right people, and providing inspiration for one of literature’s greatest masterpieces. And they often had considerable political influence too. When King Louis XV needed advice on foreign affairs or appointments of state he turned to Jeanne du Barry as well as Pompadour. In her witty and insightful prose, as Griffin celebrates these alluring and fascinating women, she restores a lost legacy of women’s history. She gives us the stories of these amazing women who, starting from impoverished or unimpressive beginnings, garnered chateaux, fine coaches, fabulous collections of jewelry, and even aristocratic titles along the way. And through a brilliant exploration of their extraordinary abilities, skills, and talents which Griffin playfully categorizes as their virtues "Timing, Beauty, Cheek, Brilliance, Gaiety, Grace, and Charm" her book explains how, while helping themselves, through their often outrageous, always entertaining examples, the great courtesans not only enriched our cultural heritage but helped to liberate women from the social, sexual, and economic strictures that confined them. Intensively researched and beautifully crafted, The Book of the Courtesans delves into scintillating but often hidden worlds, telling stories gleaned from many sources, including courtesans’ memoirs, presented along with stunning rare photographs to create memorable portraits of some of the most pivotal figures in women’s history.

Shakespeare Among the Courtesans

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317056671
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare Among the Courtesans by : Duncan Salkeld

Download or read book Shakespeare Among the Courtesans written by Duncan Salkeld and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courtesans - women who achieve wealth, status, or power through sexual transgression - have played both a central and contradictory role in literature: they have been admired, celebrated, feared, and vilified. This study of the courtesan in Renaissance English drama focuses not only on the moral ambivalence of these women, but with special attention to Anglo-Italian relations, illuminates little known aspects of their lives. It traces the courtesan from a wry comedic character in the plays of Terence and Plautus to its literary exhaustion in the seventeenth-century dramatic works of Dekker, Marston, Webster, Middleton, Shirley and Brome. The author focuses especially on the presentation of the courtesan in the sixteenth century - dramas by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Lyly view the courtesan as a symbol of social disease and decay, transforming classical conventions into English prejudices. Renaissance Anglo-Italian cultural and sexual relations are also investigated through comparisons of travel narratives, original source materials, and analysis of Aretino's representations of celebrated Italian courtesans. Amid these fascinating tales of aspiration, desire and despair lingers the intriguing question of who was the 'dark lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets.

The Courtesan's Arts

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Author :
Publisher : OUP USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195170290
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis The Courtesan's Arts by : Martha Feldman

Download or read book The Courtesan's Arts written by Martha Feldman and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courtesans, hetaeras, tawaif-s, ji-s--these women have exchanged artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons throughout history and around the world. In Ming dynasty China and early modern Italy, exchange was made through poetry, speech, and music; in pre-colonial India through magic, music, chemistry, and other arts. Yet like the art of courtesanry itself, those arts have often thrived outside present-day canons and modes of transmission, and have mostly vanished without trace.The Courtesan's Arts delves into this hidden legacy, while touching on its equivocal relationship to geisha. At once interdisciplinary, empirical, and theoretical, the book is the first to ask how arts have figured in the survival or demise of courtesan cultures by juxtaposing research from different fields. Among cases studied by writers on classics, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and various histories of art, music, literature, and political culture are Ming dynasty China, twentieth-century Korea, Edo and modern Japan, ancient Greece, early modern Italy, and India, past and present. Refusing a universal model, the authors nevertheless share a perception that courtesans hover in the crevices of space, time, and practice--between gifts and money, courts and cities, subtlety and flamboyance, feminine allure and masculine power, as wifely surrogates but keepers of culture. What most binds them to their arts in our post-industrialized world of global services and commodities, they find, is courtesans' fragility, as their cultures, once vital to civilizations founded in leisure and pleasure, are now largely forgotten, transforming courtesans into national icons or historical curiosities, or reducing them to prostitution.

Courtesans: The Weird and the Wonderful

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Author :
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 1471700836
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (717 download)

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Book Synopsis Courtesans: The Weird and the Wonderful by : Ian Warner

Download or read book Courtesans: The Weird and the Wonderful written by Ian Warner and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three alternative settings for Courtesans including Gothic Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ian Warner once again shows his joy in all the horrible clichés of Roleplaying games in this sexy and seditious best-seller. Requires Courtesans: A Roleplaying Game of Sex and Society to use.

The Courtesan's Daughter

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780425217207
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (172 download)

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Book Synopsis The Courtesan's Daughter by : Claudia Dain

Download or read book The Courtesan's Daughter written by Claudia Dain and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With her prospects for finding a suitable match limited by her mother's infamous past as one of London's most sought-after courtesans, Lady Caroline is dismayed to discover that her mother plans to purchase a husband for her by agreeing to settle the Earl of Ashdon's gambling debts in exchange for marriage. Original.

Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World

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Author :
Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 0299213137
Total Pages : 379 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World by : Christopher A. Faraone

Download or read book Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World written by Christopher A. Faraone and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2008-03-14 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World explores the implications of sex-for-pay across a broad span of time, from ancient Mesopotamia to the early Christian period. In ancient times, although they were socially marginal, prostitutes connected with almost every aspect of daily life. They sat in brothels and walked the streets; they paid taxes and set up dedications in religious sanctuaries; they appeared as characters—sometimes admirable, sometimes despicable—on the comic stage and in the law courts; they lived lavishly, consorting with famous poets and politicians; and they participated in otherwise all-male banquets and drinking parties, where they aroused jealousy among their anxious lovers. The chapters in this volume examine a wide variety of genres and sources, from legal and religious tracts to the genres of lyric poetry, love elegy, and comic drama to the graffiti scrawled on the walls of ancient Pompeii. These essays reflect the variety and vitality of the debates engendered by the last three decades of research by confronting the ambiguous terms for prostitution in ancient languages, the difficulty of distinguishing the prostitute from the woman who is merely promiscuous or adulterous, the question of whether sacred or temple prostitution actually existed in the ancient Near East and Greece, and the political and social implications of literary representations of prostitutes and courtesans.

The Courtesan's Daughter

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Author :
Publisher : Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN 13 : 9780385729079
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis The Courtesan's Daughter by : Priscilla Galloway

Download or read book The Courtesan's Daughter written by Priscilla Galloway and published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phano is almost 15, the traditional age for a woman to marry in ancient Athens. She is in love with Theo, who is 30-the traditional age for a man to marry. But marriage may not be an option for her. Her stepmother's enemy, Phrynion, claims that Phano is not really a free woman but a slave who belongs to him, and he is ready to sell her if he can get his hands on her. Phano, her father, and her stepmother must use every resource they have to try to restore her reputation and keep her safe. Even if they can keep Phrynion away, Phano may never be able to marry Theo, whose prominent family would expect a wealthy bride who would bring a good-sized dowry with her. Meanwhile, Athens faces the threat of war from Philip of Macedon. Once she turns 15, Phano must find her place as an adult in the turbulent society of ancient Greece. From the Hardcover edition.

The Courtesan

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Author :
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0345484649
Total Pages : 562 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (454 download)

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Book Synopsis The Courtesan by : Susan Carroll

Download or read book The Courtesan written by Susan Carroll and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2005-07-26 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skilled in passion, artful in deception, and driven by betrayal, she is the glittering center of the royal court–but the most desired woman of Renaissance France will draw the wrath of a dangerous adversary. Paris, 1575. The consort of some of Europe’s most influential men, Gabrielle Cheney is determined to secure her future by winning the heart of Henry, the Huguenot king of Navarre. As his mistress, Gabrielle hopes she might one day become the power behind the French throne. But her plans are jeopardized by Captain Nicolas Rémy, a devoted warrior whose love Gabrielle desires–and fears–above all. She will also incur the malevolence of the Dark Queen, Catherine de’ Medici, whose spies and witch-hunters are legion, and who will summon the black arts to maintain her authority. With the lives of those she loves in peril, Gabrielle must rebel against her queen to fulfill a glorious destiny she has sacrificed everything to gain. Alive with vivid period detail and characters as vibrant as they are memorable, The Courtesan is a sweeping historical tale of dangerous intrigues, deep treachery, and one woman’s unshakable resolve to honor her heart.

Courtesans: A Roleplaying Game of Sex and Society

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Author :
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 1471681157
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (716 download)

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Book Synopsis Courtesans: A Roleplaying Game of Sex and Society by : Ian Warner

Download or read book Courtesans: A Roleplaying Game of Sex and Society written by Ian Warner and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has always been a special class of women who defy conventional morality and family structures in order to achieve power beyond any "legitimate" bride. These are the Courtesans. More than mere common strumpets they are courted as much for their razor sharp wits, minds and sporting skill as much as for sex. Set primarily in the golden age of the English Courtesan between the Restoration and the early 20th Centuries, Courtesans offers a unique political and adversarial Roleplaying experience like no other.

In The Company Of The Courtesan

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Publisher : Virago
ISBN 13 : 0748112944
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis In The Company Of The Courtesan by : Sarah Dunant

Download or read book In The Company Of The Courtesan written by Sarah Dunant and published by Virago. This book was released on 2009-07-02 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her companion dwarf Bucino escape the sack of Rome. It's 1527. They head for the shimmering, decadent city of Venice. Sarah Dunant's epic novel of sixteenth-century Renaissance Italy is a story about the sins of pleasure and the pleasures of sin, an intoxicating mix of fact and fiction, and a dazzling portait of one of the worlds greatest cities at its most potent moment in history.

Dancing with the Nation

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501334425
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Dancing with the Nation by : Ruth Vanita

Download or read book Dancing with the Nation written by Ruth Vanita and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indian cinema is the only body of world cinema that depicts courtesans as important characters. In early films courtesan characters transmitted Indian classical dance, music and aesthetics to large audiences. They represent the nation's past, tracing their heritage to the fourth-century Kamasutra and to nineteenth-century courtly cultures, but they are also the first group of modern women in Hindi films. They are working professionals living on their own or in matrilineal families. Like male protagonists, they travel widely and develop networks of friends and chosen kin. They have relations with men outside marriage and become single mothers. Courtesan films are heroine-oriented and almost every major female actor has played this role. Challenging received wisdom, Vanita demonstrates that a larger number of courtesans in Bombay cinema are Hindu and indeterminate than are Muslim, and that films depict their culture as hybrid Hindu-Muslim, not Islamicate. Courtesans speak in the ambiguous voice of the modern nation, inviting spectators to seize pleasure here and now but also to search for the meaning of life. Vanita's groundbreaking study of courtesans and courtesan imagery in 235 films brings fresh evidence to show that the courtesan figure shapes the modern Indian erotic, political and religious imagination.

Courtesans

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Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060935146
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Courtesans by : Katie Hickman

Download or read book Courtesans written by Katie Hickman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2004-11-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the course of the nineteenth century, a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence, and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives -- and those of other people -- and made the world do their will. Extremely accomplished, well-educated, and unusually literate, courtesans exerted an incredible influence as leaders of society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette, and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue, and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.

Yoshiwara

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Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824814885
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (148 download)

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Book Synopsis Yoshiwara by : Cecilia Segawa Seigle

Download or read book Yoshiwara written by Cecilia Segawa Seigle and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1993-03-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on both historical and literary sources, examines life in the pleasure houses of Japan during the Edo period from the early 1600s to 1868. Among the topics are the origins, illegal competitors, the cost of a visit, the treatment of the courtesans, traditions and protocols, Yoshiwara arts, th

The Courtesan

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Author :
Publisher : London, Casanova Society
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Courtesan by : C. Hayward

Download or read book The Courtesan written by C. Hayward and published by London, Casanova Society. This book was released on 1926 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Shakespeare's Rhetoric of Comic Character

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136557407
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (365 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Rhetoric of Comic Character by : Karen Newman

Download or read book Shakespeare's Rhetoric of Comic Character written by Karen Newman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1985. In this revisionist history of comic characterization, Karen Newman argues that, contrary to received opinion, Shakespeare was not the first comic dramatist to create self-conscious characters who seem 'lifelike' or 'realistic'. His comic practice is firmly set within a comic tradition which stretches from Plautus and Menander to playwrights of the Italian Renaissance.

The Introduction of Characters by Name in Greek and Roman Comedy ...

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.A/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Introduction of Characters by Name in Greek and Roman Comedy ... by : David Martin Key

Download or read book The Introduction of Characters by Name in Greek and Roman Comedy ... written by David Martin Key and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1684170672
Total Pages : 483 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity by : Beverely Bossler

Download or read book Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity written by Beverely Bossler and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces changing gender relations in China from the tenth to fourteenth centuries by examining three critical categories of women: courtesans, concubines, and faithful wives. It shows how the intersection and mutual influence of these groups—and of male discourses about them—transformed ideas about family relations and the proper roles of men and women. Courtesan culture had a profound effect on Song social and family life, as entertainment skills became a defining feature of a new model of concubinage, and as entertainer-concubines increasingly became mothers of literati sons. Neo-Confucianism, the new moral learning of the Song, was significantly shaped by this entertainment culture and by the new markets—in women—that it created. Responding to a broad social consensus, Neo-Confucians called for enhanced recognition of concubine mothers in ritual and expressed increasing concern about wifely jealousy. The book also details the surprising origins of the Late Imperial cult of fidelity, showing that from inception, the drive to celebrate female loyalty was rooted in a complex amalgam of political, social, and moral agendas. By taking women—and men’s relationships with women—seriously, this book makes a case for the centrality of gender relations in the social, political, and intellectual life of the Song and Yuan dynasties.