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The Proper Book of Sexual Folklore
Book by Coffin, Tristram Potter
145 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1978
About the author
Tristram Potter Coffin
63 books6 followersTristram (“Tris”) Potter Coffin was an American folklorist and leading scholar of ballad texts in the 20th century. Coffin spent the bulk of his career at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor of English and a co-founder of the Folklore Department. He was the author of 20 books and more than 100 scholarly articles and reviews.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 7, 2024
When I started this book, I expected it to be irreverent and outdated. What I didn't expect was the blatant misogyny and racism. The book shrugs off an academic tone for a more casual one, but the author's socially regressive sense of humor constantly leaks into every page.
The book is, however, an entertaining read with many thoughtful ideas (and many, many exceedingly dumb ones). The myths, folklore, and legends in the book are interesting to to read. My BIGGEST problem, however, is that the book -in the tradition of anthropology set by the Golden Bough- makes a LOT of claims about a lot of cultures without any citations. You can't believe a lot of what you read in this book.
That said, it is anthropologically interesting in the same way the Golden Bough is - that these are things that are or were believed about these cultures.
That, and much of the Western European culture and folklore talked about *IS* cited. So if you have an interest in English folklore, there's some good stuff here. I wouldn't reccomend reading it for even this, though, unless you have enough knowledge of the subject to know when something the author says is complete bullshit or has since been disproven by historians.
Its a minefield of a book, best suited only for specific research purposes.
The book is, however, an entertaining read with many thoughtful ideas (and many, many exceedingly dumb ones). The myths, folklore, and legends in the book are interesting to to read. My BIGGEST problem, however, is that the book -in the tradition of anthropology set by the Golden Bough- makes a LOT of claims about a lot of cultures without any citations. You can't believe a lot of what you read in this book.
That said, it is anthropologically interesting in the same way the Golden Bough is - that these are things that are or were believed about these cultures.
That, and much of the Western European culture and folklore talked about *IS* cited. So if you have an interest in English folklore, there's some good stuff here. I wouldn't reccomend reading it for even this, though, unless you have enough knowledge of the subject to know when something the author says is complete bullshit or has since been disproven by historians.
Its a minefield of a book, best suited only for specific research purposes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review