Venus as Muse

• ContentsIntroductionGÜNTER BLAMBERGERVenus as Muse. A Contradictory Thought-Image? 9SEBASTIAN GOTHVenus Anadyomene. The Birth of Art 15ELIZABETH ASMISVenus and the Passion for Renewal in Lucretius’s On the Natureof Things 41Visual & Performing ArtsJENNIFER SHAWThe Figure of Venus. Rhetoric of the Ideal from Cabanel toClaude Cahun 57JEANETTE KOHLIntra-Venus 73LiteratureSEBASTIAN GOTHVenus as Muse. Toward a Poetics of Lust 121RUDOLF DRUX“The Most Blessed Goddess” Venus as the ‘Ally’ of the Poet (in)Heinrich Heine 149TOM CONLEYVenus Backwards. From Rimbaud to Ronsard 163BARBARA VINKENNana: Venus a rebours. Paris of the Second Empire as the Returnof Rome and Babylon 173HANJO BERRESSEMThe Transit of Venus 199Film, Media, TheoryLAURENCE RICKELSVenus Barbata 221ELISABETH BRONFENCleopatra’s Venus 235COLIN GARDNERSamuel Beckett’s ‘Peephole’ Venus. Re-Sexualization,The Oral Mother, and the Masochist Contract in Eh Joe,Ghost Trio, and …but the clouds… 251PATRICIA MACCORMACKVenusian Ecosophy 265Contributors 281

“The strength of the collection is its emphasis on historical continuity: Western culture, it seems, frequently drawing on Oriental models, has always had need of a love goddess. She has just taken different forms as social contexts have evolved down the last two millennia.” - Julian Preece, Swansea University, in: Modern Language Review 111.2 (2016), pp. 534-535