Forbidden Partners: The Incest Taboo In Modern Culture

Forbidden Partners: The Incest Taboo in Modern Culture

Suggests cultural reasons for incest being a taboo, looks at the theme of incest in literature, movies, and advertising, and discusses the extent of the problem todayFrom Library JournalFocusing on Anglo-American culture of the late 18th century to the present, Twitchell effectively explores the support found for the incest taboo in both art and popular culture. He investigates the works of Byron, Shelly, Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville; concerns aroused by Lolita , both book and film; and the exploitation of the incest taboo in advertising. Despite his anti-Freudian bias, Twitchell concludes, "The prohibition on incest has proved one of the most pervasive and influential organizing patterns in human life . . . . The enigma of incest draws its energy from so deep within the human psyche that it seems almost instinctive. It is not, yet our anxiety has such far-reaching effects." For academic and larger public libraries. Allen E. Marans, Baltimore-D.C. Institute for Psychoanalysis, Washington, D.C.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.