The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

by Lewis Hyde

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
723	2	11,847	(4.13)	4

Add to your library

Add to wishlist

all members

▾Members

Recently added by	rokeon, MMariaSmith, Caitlin.Faith, birdsofparadise, private library, ballard_landmark, IraSandperlLibrary, nobodhi
Legacy Libraries	David Foster Wallace

numbers

show all

▾Tags

aesthetics (6) anthropology (38) art (62) Creation (4) creativity (53) criticism (10) cultural studies (4) economics (18) essay (5) essays (12) Ezra Pound (4) gift (12) gifts (12) giving (4) literary criticism (23) literature (6) non-fiction (62) own (4) philosophy (24) poetry (8) property (5) psychology (5) social theory (6) sociology (26) theory (8) to-read (12) unread (6) Walt Whitman (5) wishlist (5) writing (11)

refresh

▾Member recommendations

None.

▾Will you like it?

▾Member reviews

date ▼ | votes

Showing 2 of 2

disappointed by the somewhat lengthy and repetitive theoretical approach and by the irrelevant long passage with two "experiments in gift aesthetics" on whitman and pound - seemingly endless pages of close analysis that were interesting, but had little in common with the main thesis, and should have been published on their own.
i would still agree that many interesting points were mentioned. the book fed my mind on the subject of gifts and gift exchange (gifts vs. commodities, community vs. liberty and bonds vs.freedom). (

)

flydodofly | Jun 13, 2011 |

This classic work explores the mystery of giving through anthropological examples, and extends that analysis to explain artistic creation as essentially a giving, altruistic activity. (

)

Informatix95 | Sep 20, 2009 |

date ▼ | votes

Showing 2 of 2

▾Published reviews

no reviews | add a review

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (2 possible)

▾Work-to-work relationships

view history

▾Common Knowledge

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.

For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.

Series (with order)

Canonical title

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Walt Whitman

Ezra Pound

Martin Luther

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

Epigraph

O wonderful! O wonderful! O wonderful! I am food! I am food! I am food! I eat food! I eat food! I eat food! My name never dies, never dies, never dies! I was born first in the first of worlds, earlier than the gods, in the belly of what has no death! Whoever gives me away has helped me the most! I, who am food, eat the eater of food! I have overcome this world! He who knows this shines like the sun. Such are the laws of the mystery! Taittiri-ya Upanishad

You received gifts from me; they were accepted. But you don't understand how to think about the dead. The smell of winter apples, of hoarfrost, and of linen. There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth. Czeslaw Milosz

Dedication

First words

Book salesmen find it hand to have a ten-second description of each title when they go into a bookstore to pitch the product.

When the Puritans first landed in Massachusetts, they discovered a thing so curious about the Indians' feelings for property that they felt called upon to give it a name.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Publisher series

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

Gift	Gift economy

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Haiku summary

▾Book descriptions

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0394715195, Paperback)

Discusses the argument that a work of art is essentially a gift and not a commodity.

(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:35:09 -0500)

(see all 3 descriptions)

▾Library descriptions

Examines the concept of gifts in anthropological terms and uses this approach to analyze the situation of creative artists and their gifts to society.

» see all 2 descriptions