Venereal Cravings
An Unhurried View of Erotica. By Ralph Ginz- burg. (Seeker and Warburg, 30s.)
I MUST admit that the word 'Erotica' in a title paralyses my arm in mid-stretch. 'Erotica' is a term coined in the shady underworld of scholar- ship—it suggests the pruriently hypocritical exam- ination of the physical details of sex under the tutelage of old dons and middle-aged booksellers., I cannot think why this book is called'an unhurried view.' The ages whip by with the speed of a back- street pornographer flicking over the coloured plates by the light of a fading torch. From the ancient Peruvians. the Romans, and the Anglo- Saxons to what Mr. Ginsburg calls 'the latter seventeenth century' takes only seventeen pages even with a type-face the size of that jumbo print used for children's fairy stories. What depresses me about Mr. Ginzburg is the way he is contin- ually on the verge of revealing some sizzling new and unknown source of information though he apparently has not read, or if he has read has not understood, the standard works known to every eager young undergraduate. He thinks, for instance, that the Wife of Bath's Tale is erotica— because, in his own fuzzy, out-of-focus words; 'therein she gleefully proclaims the insatiability of her venereal cravings.' Also Mr. Ginzburg's titles are always much more exciting than his excerpts. The quotations he includes are sadly disappointing, consisting Mainly of mild double entendres like Sir Charles Sedley's song, 'Young Coridon and Phillis,' which I have heard sung to the guitar at respectable musical soirees, or un- exciting snippets of narrative from Daniel Defoe and Frank Harris. There is not a single sentence that would be condemned to the burning even by the magistrates of Swindon.
Continually I got the feeling that Mr. Ginsburg has never read through the open shelves of a library like the Bodleian, let alone scrutinised the restricted stacks in the basement. In the seven- teenth century alone, he seems to have overlooked John Donne's The Comparison, Thomas Carew's Rapture, Sir John Suckling's The Candle, and any unexpurgated edition of Herrick. Here is erotica —some of it brilliant, some of it comic, some of it tedious—but all of it available at any ordinary bookshop. He hardly appears to be aware, also, of any difference between pornography and scatidogy—else why include Benjamin Franklin's letter about breaking wind?—or between porno- graphy and obscenity—else why include dirty limericks? He continually makes bold assertions about erotica for which he produces not a jot of documentation—it is significant that in his 'Biblio- graphy of One Hundred Titles' half the books have no authors, publishers, country of origin, or date of first publication. Mr. Ginzburg's literary comments are usually meaningless or banal : Lady Chatterley's Lover is 'characteristically insular in its poignancy.' An Unhurried View of Erotica is practically worthless as either entertainment or education. It is too prudish to provide the first and too ill-informed to be useful for the second.
ALAN BRIEN
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