Eros in Mourning: Homer to LacanJohns Hopkins University Press, 1995 - 231 pages "For the religious-philosophical tradition in which Western literature is rooted", writes Henry Staten, "mourning is the horizon of all desire. As soon as desire is something felt by a mortal being for a mortal being, eros (as desire-in-general) will always be to some degree agitated by the anticipation of loss". 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 the Gospel of John, Dante, the troubadours, Petrarch, Hamlet, Paradise Lost, La Princess de Cleves, and Heart of Darkness, Staten shows how literary history may be reconstituted in terms of a poetics of mourning that keeps in sight the traditional problematic of mortal and transcendent eros. Finally, a reading of Lacan suggests that this writer - so profoundly influential today on the question of desire - must be understood in the context of the dialectic of mourning that dominates his work. |
Contents
The Argument I | 1 |
Before Transcendence The Iliad | 21 |
How the Spirit Almost Became Flesh | 47 |
Copyright | |
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absolute Adam Adam's choice Agamemnon Akhilleus Akhilleus's already apoina Arnaut Daniel ascent Augustine authentic automourning Beatrice beauty beloved Bernart body Briseis Bultmann Christian Clèves consummation courtly love crucial culture Dante Dante's death declares desire dialectic divine doctrine eros erotic essence eternal Eve's flesh geras Giraut de Bornelh Gospel grief Hamlet Heart of Darkness Hegel Hektor human idealization Iliad imagination individual Jacques Lacan Jesus John kleos Kurtz Lacan lady language libidinal Logos loss lover Lustful Turk Madame de Lafayette Marlow means Milton mortal mourning Nagy narration nature Neoplatonism object Paradise Lost particularity passion Patroklos Petrarch philos physical Platonic pleasure poem possible precisely problematic question Raphael relation reparation resurrection Rime petrose sarx says Seminar sense sexual soul spiritual structure symbolic thing thought tion tradition trans transcendent trobairitz Trojans troubadour troubadour poetry unfallen University Press vengeful woman women words York zōë