case a primer-actually a quite advanced handbook-of sex technique, with a pun on the word 'horn'" (page 48)

The problems of authorship, origins, publishers, editions, etc., which are unbelievably complex, set the style and approach to the whole field of erotic folklore literature. Thus the

name.

From so elaborate a book one can only select scattering ideas leaving the vast number of authors and specimens for those who have specialized interests. The author states that collectors of erotica "are normal people interested in normal things" (78) as contrasted to those interested in murdermysteries and other non-erotica. Perverted erotica, however, do exist and are to be gotten rid of. Unfortunately he lists homosexuality with flagellation, fetichism, corporphily, sadism, etc. "Expurgation of the literature and art of Europe was a direct result of the Protestant Reformation begun by Luther, though Luther himself had little to do with it." (78) The author does not hesitate to lambast his former employer in his attempt to rule out the non-acceptable. He says of the sadistic literature:

"As with homosexuals, a similar and in fact largely overlapping group, the noise they make is all out of proportion to their numerical incidencedespite the faked and weighted figures of the late Professor Kinsey, pretending to prove the opposite-and rises. solely from the assiduity of their propagandizing and proselytizing activity." (113)

He holds further that the opposition to the legitimate and scholarly activity in the field is due to the antihumanistic and anti-intellectual agreement between literary avant-garde and reactionary political groups which is the mark of the culturally decadent twentieth century (116, 117)

In his researches the author has un-

covered some highly unexpected

sources of erotica which he submits to his technical scrutiny. The work of Robert Burns is an example. He says:

Burns' greatness in what he wrote of women was-precisely as with Shakespeare and his 'articulate heroines' his remarkable identification with women and their emotions, which is one of the crucial elements in the poetic temperament and one reason why it has often been confused with mere homosexuality (138) Burns' feminine identification songs are among the most penetrating statements of the erotic emotions of women-as man believes them to be-that have ever been made (216)

One has always to distinguish between genuine folklore and the commercial and artificial product of the theatre and music halls, later radio, television and movies. This break first occurred in the early eighteenth century when the stylized and artificial Italian opera drove out of England the ballad-operas. (292, 293) Folklore has a serious function. The author thus expresses the idea:

"Folklore is that which serves a certain function: the function of social or individual expression, appreciation, communication or control of particularly feared or valued aspects of the natural or civilized life being lived. (332) The human spirit does not easily die." (324) In fact it is in its folklore and folk habits that a defeated nation clings most desperately to its continued existence as a people. (366)

Throughout his work the author makes a strong plea for a rational attitude toward sex. In fact he is scathing in his denunciation of the various types of literature which are so squeamish about the "simple normality of sexual intercourse (which) has got to be apologized for and deprecated, or silently left out every time." (350) When every other type of anti-social and anti-human crime