The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser
by Aubrey Beardsley
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Left unfinished at Beardsley's death, this re-telling of the old legend is a witty account of Tannhasuer's visit to the glamorous pleasure palace of Venus. It combines Beardsley's fascination for abandoning oneself to sexual pleasure and his love of the artificial and exotic. This edition contains illustrations by the author and was completed in 1959 by the poet John Glassco.Tags
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An effervescent amuse-bouche (recipe within!) for anyone with a palate for Firbank, Pasti, Wilmot, Wittkop, Petronius, Aretino, Suetonius. Not for the burger and fries crowd. Clearly.
Just didn't do much for me. High-brow erotica? What's the point? To me, it was too formalized to be erotic and just came across as slightly silly.
Beardsley is more of an artist than a writer apparently, the drawings in this are quite odd looking. Its about a man who goes to a party under the hill much like the opera above, except Venus is referred to as Helen in this instance.
After the party the protagonist does a sort of list of his favorite erotic pictures and novels and then its pretty much over.
I don't really get it, its supposed to be filth and i got the occasional hint of that with women wearing false-mustaches and certain suggestive elements at the end between Helen and her pet unicorn Adolphe... but it felt pointless.
After the party the protagonist does a sort of list of his favorite erotic pictures and novels and then its pretty much over.
I don't really get it, its supposed to be filth and i got the occasional hint of that with women wearing false-mustaches and certain suggestive elements at the end between Helen and her pet unicorn Adolphe... but it felt pointless.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser
- Original title
- Under the Hill
- Alternate titles
- Under the Hill
- Original publication date
- 1907
- People/Characters
- Tannhäuser; Venus
- Disambiguation notice
- The Story of Venus and Tannhauser was also published under the title Under the Hill.
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- Members
- 331
- Popularity
- 95,628
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (2.98)
- Languages
- 9 — Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 29
- ASINs
- 27




























































