Emotional Healing, Literary Theory, General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism

Eros in Mourning

Name: Eros in Mourning
Author: Professor Henry Staten
ISBN: 9780801849237

by Professor Henry Staten

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Overview

Eros in Mourning begins with a reading of the Iliad that shows how Homer, not yet influenced by the ideology of transcendence, analyzes the structure of unassuageable mourning in a way that is as up-to-date as the latest poststructuralism. Then, in readings of Dante, Hamlet, La Princess de Cleves, Heart of Darkness, and Lacan, Staten depicts the "thanatoerotic" hysteria that is set off by the specter of the dead and decomposing body that is also the body of sexual love and whic, in the "transcendentalizing" tradition, is more female than male. Yet, St. John, certain troubadours, and Milton offer glimpses of a more affirmative relation to "eros and mourning."

About the Author, Professor Henry Staten

Henry Staten is a professor of English and comparative literature and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Washington. He is the author of Wittgenstein and Derrida and Nietzsche's Voice.

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Staten (English and philosophy, U. of Utah) shows how literary history may be reconstituted in terms of a poetics of mourning that considers the traditional problematic of mortal and transcendent eros. He analyzes The Iliad, Hamlet, and Paradise Lost, the Gospel of John, and the works of Lacan and Plato, and discusses idealization and transcendence associated with the historical phenomena of Platonism and Platonizing Christianity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)