Presto J. Beyond the Flesh: Alexander Blok, Zinaida Gippius, and the Symbolist Sublimation of Sex

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. — 352 p. — ISBN10: 0299229505; ISBN13: 978-0299229504.Though the Russian Symbolist movement was dominated by a concern with transcending sex, many of the writers associated with the movement exhibited an intense preoccupation with matters of the flesh. Drawing on poetry, plays, short stories, essays, memoirs, and letters, as well as feminist and psychoanalytic theory, Beyond the Flesh documents the often unexpected form that this obsession with gender and the body took in the life and art of two of the most important Russian Symbolists. Jenifer Presto argues that the difficulties encountered in reading Alexander Blok and Zinaida Gippius within either a feminist or a traditional, binary gendered framework derive not only from the peculiarities of their creative personalities but also from the specific Russian cultural context. Although these two poets engaged in gendered practices that, at times, appeared to be highly idiosyncratic and even incited gossip among their contemporaries, they were not operating in a vacuum. Instead, they were responding to philosophical concepts that were central to Russian Symbolism and that would continue to shape modernism in Russia.Introduction. Beyond the Flesh: Russian Symbolism and the Sublimation of SexPoetry against Progeny: Blok and the Problem of Poetic ReproductionUnbearable Burdens: Blok and the Modernist Resistance to Progeny
Recurring Nightmares: Blok, Freud, and the Specter of Die Ahnfrau
Reproductive Fantasies: Blok and the Creation of The Italian Verses
A Time of Troubles: Blok and the Disruption of Poetic SuccessionWriting against the Body: Gippius and the Problem of Lyric EmbodimentStyle “Femme”: Gippius and the Resistance to Feminine Writing
The Dandy’s Gaze: Gippius and Disdainful Desire for the Feminine
Eternal Feminine Problems: Gippius, Blok, and the Incarnation of the Ideal
Body Trouble: Gippius and the Staging of an Anatomy of CriticismAfterword. The Return of the Repressed: Illegitimate Babies and an Unwieldy Body