Love's Litany: The Writing of Modern Homoerotics
Type
Book
Authors
ISBN 10
0804723451
ISBN 13
9780804723459
Category
Non-Fiction
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Publication Year
1994
Publisher
Pages
208
Tags
Abstract
Loves' Litany is the first extensive analysis of the relation of erotic philosophy to homosexuality in the modern period, and examines the ways in which nineteenth-century conceptions of love have shaped contemporary conceptions of lesbian and gay subjectivity. The book focuses on four features of romantic love that are central to both nineteenth-century erotic philosophy and twentieth-century homoeroticism: complementary merger, the idea that "opposites attract"; love-death (Liebestod), the figuration of love as fatal union; Wertherism, the association of love with sadness, solitude, and suicide; and "crystallization, " Stendhal's term for believing a beloved to be perfect.
Number of Copies
2
