Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero

Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero
- Used Book in Good Condition
In a masterful work of cultural history, Charles Sprawson, himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver, explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water. Sprawson compares the meaning various societies have assigned to swimmingâ€”from classical Greece and imperial Rome to nineteenth-century England and Germany and the U.S. and Japan in the last fifty years. Sprawson gives us fascinating glimpses of the great swimmer heroes: Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelleyâ€™s beach funeral; Edgar Allen Poeâ€™s lone and mysterious river-swims; Rupert Brooke swimming naked with Virginia Woolf; Hart Crane swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico; Johnny Weismuller as athlete and entertainer. Informed by the literature of Swinburne, Goethe, Scott Fitzgerald, and Yukio Mishima; the films of Reifenstahl and Vigo; the Hollywood â€œswimming musicalsâ€ of the 1930s; and delving in and out of Olympic history, Haunts of the Black Masseur is a celebration of swimming that explores aspects of culture in a heretofore unimagined way.
Country USA
Brand University of Minnesota Press
Manufacturer Univ Of Minnesota Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber illustrations
ReleaseDate 2000-07-04
UnitCount 1
UPCs 880829844715
EANs 9780816635399

Country	USA
Brand	University of Minnesota Press
Manufacturer	Univ Of Minnesota Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	illustrations
ReleaseDate	2000-07-04
UnitCount	1
UPCs	880829844715
EANs	9780816635399

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