Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Warner investigates a recurrent motif in allegory, ``the female form as an expression of desiderata and virtues,'' looking at literary and visual forms from classical times to the present. She assumes a working knowledge of classical writings, but her presentation is clearly thought out, and not burdened down with jargon, esoterica, or non-sequiturs. At the center of Warner's argument is an attempt to understand the paradox of using the form of a woman to represent ideas that are not considered womanly (Justice is represented as a woman, but not because women are thought to be just). She raises issues that are important to the continued development of a scholarly discipline of women's studies, as well as breaking new ground in the literary interpretation of traditional myths and images. Highly recommended. Patricia Scott, Comparative Arts Dept., Ohio Univ., Chillicothe (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Examining an impressive scope of materialart (Donatello, Vermeer, Judy Chicago), Greek mythology, the Bible, literature, linguistics and mass mediaWarner (Alone of All Her Sex) traces the different meanings which have been ascribed to the female form throughout the ages. ``Liberty is not represented by a woman because women were and are free''; allegory by definition requires a gap (and a resemblance) between the ideal and the real. But there is a give-and-take of meaning between the female fantasy figuresAthena, Wisdom, Temperance, et al.and actual women. Warner suggests that some women (the armed maidens of Justice and Chastity, etc.) may take on male personas (the brandished weapons) to best shield themselves from the masculine code. Pandora, the first woman of classical myth, and Eve, the mother in the Judeo-Christian story, bear the burden of men's dreams: made and named by others, agents of calamity through the desire they inspire but do not experience themselves. Unlike men, women lose their individuality as they become universal symbols, and the only way to rid the female form of contaminated meanings is ``to respect the individual inside the symbol''to look through the Statue of Liberty's eyes to see that she can represent freedom only if we were to forget the female condition. The difficulty with this sometimes brilliant study is that, like the history it examines, it never comes to rest with an unchanging definition. Illustrated. November 25 (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

A long and elaborately documented coffee-table survey from the Greeks to present-day England of the meaning, both intentional and hidden, of female allegorical figures in art and literature. Warner explains some recondite and interesting symbolism, like the sieve of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia that held water, and so proved her chastity, and the many symbolic counterparts of the continent sieve, like Mary Magdalen's pyxis and Pandora's jar; she demonstrates how (paradoxically) the bared female breast can represent nature, and female virtue generally. But in the great majority of monuments where the allegory is less obvious, Warner seems merely to be describing at excessive length what the eye (or mind) might more quickly imagine, if permitted to contemplate something other than the small black-and-white plates inconveniently sandwiched into the center of the book. She also insists that male artists ``reify'' and demean the real women who cannot conform to the standard abstractions they have imposed on them. Amusing perhaps, occasionally interesting, but too superficial to be taken seriously or be considered an essential acquisition.-M.R. Lefkowitz, Wellesley College

Kirkus Book Review

Here's a super intelligent woman author who doesn't pander to the polemic of feminist politics about injustices inflicted by men since the dawn of homo. She's written a highly literate, superbly documented, readable analysis about the central paradox of the female form and what it has represented throughout history. Warner's previous works (Alone of All Her Sex, and her latest novel The Skating Party) have laid the groundwork for this noteworthy effort about the plural significances attached to womens' bodies and the fantasies, longings, and terror projected into and about them. This is no dull, archaic, boring work of old-time scholasticism--Monuments and Maidens is alive with visual analogies, careful substantiation, and fresh insight in a contemporary approach, although limited by brevity and Warner's own predilections (a Brit, bred in Egypt). The shield of Achilles given him by Athena is not just the aegis of Medusa or Freud's metaphor for male castration complex, but a force field ... al hi Darth Vader emitting chilling darkness and thunderclouds. Wonder Woman, Princess Leia Organa of Star Wars and Leela of TV's ""Dr. Who"" are all metaphors for the biblical Judith slaying Holofernes--the embodiment of the chaste goddess-warrior. ""Maggie"" Thatcher, England's ""Iron Lady,"" becomes Boadicia--redhaired fierce leader of the Britons who takes poison rather than become a slave to Rome. Warner goads and pricks our intellects while raising controversial and not easily answered questions. Why does the faithfulness required of men like Ulysses not include the chastity of his body as it does in the case of Penelope, his wife? Why should the modern world snigger at the intact chastity of Lady Godiva--while the seminaked and naked female form sells soap, cars, drinks and whatever? Warner raises the issue and theory that perhaps women develop a persona (exaggerated ferocity, aggressiveness, assuming traditionally male dominated aspects) according to man's code of values just to protect themselves from that very code. From Delacroix's parody of ""Liberty""--breasts bared, brandishing the tricolor and flintlock to Mae West as the Statue of Liberty and universal mother, this is thought-provoking, informative, insightful. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.