Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the Architecture of Dreams

By Demetra Vogiatzaki

With its otherworldly woodcuts and ornate descriptions of imagined architecture, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili brims with an obsessive and erotic fixation on form. Demetra Vogiatzaki accompanies the hero as he wanders the pages of this quattrocento marvel, at once a story of lost love and a fever dream of antiquity. more

“Relaxations for the Impotent”: Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare and the Contradictions of American Smut

By Colin Dickey

J.-K. Huysmans pastiche? Formative influence on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl? Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare (1922) is at turns obtuse, grotesque, and moralizing — and sought to provoke the obscenity trial of the century. Only it didn’t, quietly vanishing instead. Colin Dickey rereads this failed satire, finding a transcendent rhythm pulsing beneath the novel’s indulgent prose. more