Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture (Literary Studies)

Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture is a rich testament to our ubiquitous preoccupation with the tangled web of death and desire. In these pages we find nuanced analysis that blends Plato with Shelley, Hölderlin with Foucault. Dollimore, a gifted thinker, is not content to summarize these texts from afar; instead, he weaves a thread through each to tell the magnificent story of the making of the modern individual. Theological Studies This is a work of breath-taking scope and reach. ...impressive command of sources and penetrating vision.... Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture is a rich testament to our ubiquitous preoccupation with the tangled web of death and desire. In these pages we find nuanced analysis that blends Plato with Shelley, Holderlin with Foucault. Dollimore, a gifted thinker, is not content to summarize these texts from afar; instead, he weaves a thread through each to tell the magnificent story of the making of the modern individual. An immensely important book, Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture promises to change the way we understand desire, sexuality and the very notion of identity. Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture is a rich testament to our ubiquitous preoccupation with the tangled web of death and desire. In these pages we find nuanced analysis that blends Plato with Shelley, Hölderlin with Foucault. Dollimore, a gifted thinker, is not content to summarize these texts from afar; instead, he weaves a thread through each to tell the magnificent story of the making of the modern individual. Because the full texts for all Greek prose authors before Herodotus (c. 485-c. 425 BC), and all philosophical writing before Plato (c. 428-c. 348 BC), are lost, we know their writings only through quotations, reports and paraphrases in latter literature which survived the collapse of ancient civilization. The relationship between sex and death has long intrigued Western thinkers. Dollimore traces this preoccupation from the works of the philosophers of the ancient world, through the early Christian theologians, to the 19th and 20th centuries and our supposedly sophisticated perspective Includes bibliographical references (p. 356-374) and index http://archive.org/details/deathdesirelossi00doll __Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture__