Word: kissinger
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Before a reader gets too cozy with Professor Perella's explication of the religio-erotic kiss symbolism in Western culture, it should be noted that not everyone has found mutual labial stimulation appealing. To the Chinese, for example, kissing had revolting associations with cannibalism. Even Dr. Freud seemed standoffish...
Framing his literary inquiry with the early Christian mystics and the late Renaissance, Perella points out that the history of kissing is closely associated with the tensions between Platonic and anti-Platonic thought. At one extreme is the purity of Plato's androgynous idea that love is a spiritual...
Amor Interruptus. Perella views early Christians as erotic mystics. The New Testament shows Christ to have been an active kisser, though in his case it must be assumed that kissing was the religious equivalent of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
To some medieval mystics, the kiss seems to have been one of the higher forms of contemplation. It was, Perella says, the "terminus," not the "prelude" to lovemaking. As such, kissing fitted perfectly into the medieval concept that there are dynamic benefits to be had from unsatisfied physical desire. Sexual...
Perella is not happy with Castiglione. He sees him as a sophist who robbed love of the more highly charged and riskier mysticism of earlier, passionate orthodox kissers. In fact, after dealing with Castiglione, Perella registers a marked decrease in ardor for his major subject. The concluding chapter on the...