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- Title
"The Sable Venus" and Desire for the Undesirable.
- Authors
ALLEN, REGULUS
- Abstract
The article presents poetry criticism of the poem "The Sable Venus: An Ode," attributed to Isaac Teale. It explores the tensions and anxieties involved in white men's attraction to black women as expressed in the literary trope of the Black Venus. According to the author, Teale's poem attempts to explain this attraction by contrasting sexual desire for black women with white women's supposedly pure and ideal beauty. An illustration of the poem by artist Thomas Stothard is also discussed.
- Subjects
SABLE Venus: An Ode, The (Poem); POETRY (Literary form); LITERARY criticism; TEALE, Isaac; FEMININE beauty (Aesthetics) in literature; BLACK women in literature; STOTHARD, Thomas, 1755-1834; DESIRE in literature
- Publication
SEL: Studies in English Literature (Johns Hopkins), 2011, Vol 51, Issue 3, p667
- ISSN
0039-3657
- Publication type
Poetry Review
- DOI
10.1353/sel.2011.0029