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From one of the greatest prose stylists of any generation, the essay that inspired the theme of the 2019 Met Gala, Camp: Notes on Fashion.
Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility-unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it-that goes by the cult name of "Camp."
So begins Susan Sontag's seminal essay "Notes on 'Camp.' " Originally published in 1964 and included in her landmark debut essay collection Against Interpretation, Sontag's notes set out to define something that even the most well-informed could describe only as "I know it when I see it." At once grounded in a sweeping history (Louis XIV was pure Camp) and entirely provisional, Camp delights in low and high culture alike. Tiffany lamps, the androgynous beauty of Greta Garbo, King Kong (1933), and Mozart all embody the Camp sensibility for Sontag-an almost ineffable blend of artifice, extravagance, playfulness, and a deadly seriousness. At the time Sontag published her essay, Camp, as a subversion of sexual norms, had also become a private code of signification for queer communities.
Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility-unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it-that goes by the cult name of "Camp."
So begins Susan Sontag's seminal essay "Notes on 'Camp.' " Originally published in 1964 and included in her landmark debut essay collection Against Interpretation, Sontag's notes set out to define something that even the most well-informed could describe only as "I know it when I see it." At once grounded in a sweeping history (Louis XIV was pure Camp) and entirely provisional, Camp delights in low and high culture alike. Tiffany lamps, the androgynous beauty of Greta Garbo, King Kong (1933), and Mozart all embody the Camp sensibility for Sontag-an almost ineffable blend of artifice, extravagance, playfulness, and a deadly seriousness. At the time Sontag published her essay, Camp, as a subversion of sexual norms, had also become a private code of signification for queer communities.
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Reviews
"A groundbreaking piece of cultural activism . . . 'Notes on "Camp" ' did that rare thing: It facilitated a major shift in the perceptions of the culture it defined."
Jon Savage, The Guardian