Dominika Oramus
WAYS OF PLEASURE
Angela Carter’s „Discourse of Delight” in her Fiction and Non-Fiction
ISBN 83-60269-01-7
Warsaw 2006
Contents:
Acknowledgments 8
Introduction 9
Chapter 1 – „Discourse of delight” 15
The critics on Angela Carter 15
Angela Carter on the critics 23
Mapping pleasure 31
Chapter 2 – The Way of Oscar Wilde 52
Dandyism 52
Fashion 73
Costume 78
Chapter 3 – The Way of William Butler Yeats 90
Art 90
Artificer 93
Artefact 96
Artists 119
Chapter 4 – The Way of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade..
Pornography 139
Debauchery 152
Chapter 5 – The Way of Sigmund Freud
Desire 166
Memory 190
Theatricality 200
Mother 208
Conclusion 218
Bibliography 222
Works by Angela Carter 222
Works on Angela Carter 223
General Works 227
Index 236
Introduction – According to Apuleius, Pleasure is the daughter of Cupid and Psyche – of Love and the Soul, that is, a sufficiently elevated pedigree, one would have thought. Yet the British still put up a strong resistance to the idea that pleasurability might be a valid criterion in the response to literature’ (Carter 1997: 490). So claims Angela Carter in a book review written towards the end of her life. Thus formulated, her opinion that books are first of all for gratification, for the reader’s pleasure – not ideological statements (…)