Sirens: Symbols of Seduction

Ever since the Sirens first tempted Ulysses closer to a rocky death with their celestial voices and forbidden secrets, they and their mermaid sisters have maintained an ongoing love affair with humanity's greatest writers, artists, and poets. With the torsos of women and the lower halves of birds or fish, they have long been symbols of the lure of the dark feminine, seducers who beckon men with promises of desires fulfilled. Sirens: Symbols of Seduction is both a celebration of Sirens and an examination of the psychological drives underlying this archetype.

Sirens play important roles in the classical writings of Homer and Euripides, as well as the modern works of James Joyce, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and many others. Matching these writings with the vibrant work of such artists as Peter Paul Rubens, Hieronymous Bosch, Edvard Munch, and Rene Magritte, Meri Lao has created a feast for the eye and ear as seductive as the Sirens themselves. She traces their evolution from fierce, winged creatures who carry the dead from the battlefield to the elusive, sensuous mermaids glimpsed by sailors for centuries and immortalized in Hollywood by actresses such as Esther Williams and Daryl Hannah. Exploring our 3,000-year-old obsession with Sirens, Lao reveals the secret of their power: their song is the sound of subversiveness, luring us from the orderly world above the waves down to the phantasmagoric realm of dreams, and the harder we try to ignore what they are singing, the more we desperately want to hear it.