How the French Invented Love : Nine Hundred Years of Passion and Romance

Oh, how the French love love! For hundreds of years, they have championed themselves as guides to the art de l'amour through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. A French man or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. Now revered scholar Marilyn Yalom intimately examines the tenets of this culture's enduring gospel of romance. Basing her delightfully erudite findings on her extensive readings of French literature, as well as memories of her personal experiences in la belle France, Yalom explores the many nuances of love as it has evolved over the centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present. Following along, step-by-step, on her romance-tinged literary detective hunt, the reader discovers how the French invented love, how they have kept it vibrant for more than nine centuries, what is unique in the French love experience, and what is universal Acclaimed Scholar Marilyn Yalom Distills The Central Tenets Of The Gallic Gospel Of Love From Her Reading Of The Great French Literary Works, As Well As From The People She Has Known And Her Own Memories Of France, Examining Almost A Thousand Years Of Divine Culture In Search Of The Intimate Moments That Reveal How The Particularly French Concept Of L'amour Has Endured And Evolved. Abélard And Héloïse, Patron Saints Of French Lovers -- Courtly Love : How The French Invented Romance -- Gallant Love : La Princesse De Clèves -- Comic Love, Tragic Love : Molière And Racine -- Seduction And Sentiment : Prévost, Crébillon Fils, Rousseau, And Laclos -- Love Letters : Julie De Lespinasse -- Republican Love : Elisabeth Le Bas And Madame Roland -- Yearning For The Mother : Constant, Stendahl, And Balzac -- Love Among The Romantics : George Sand And Alfred De Musset -- Romantic Love Deflated : Madame Bovary -- Love In The Gay Nineties : Cyrano De Bergerac -- Love Between Men : Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde, And Gide -- Desire And Despair : Proust's Neurotic Lovers -- Lesbian Love : Colette, Gertrude Stein, And Violette Leduc -- Existentialists In Love : Simone De Beauvoir And Jean-paul Sartre -- The Dominion Of Desire : Marguerite Duras -- Love In The Twenty-first Century. Marilyn Yalom. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [371]-390) And Index. "Absolutely marvelous...lively and learned....Marilyn Yalom's book is a distinguished contribution to our experience of a great literature, as well as an endearing memoir." —Diane Johnson, author of Lulu in Marrakech and Le Divorce "[An] enchanting tour of French literature—from Abelard and Heloise in the 12th century to Marguerite Duras in the 20th and Philippe Sollers in the 21st." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) How the French Invented Love is an entertaining and masterful history of love à la française by acclaimed scholar Marilyn Yalom. Spanning the Middle Ages to the present, Yalom explores a love-obsessed culture through its great works of literature—from Moliere's comic love to the tragic love of Racine, from the existential love of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre to the romanticism of George Sand and Alfred de Musset. A thoroughly engaging homage to French culture and literature interlaced with the author's delicious personal anecdotes, How the French Invented Love is ideal for fans of Alain de Botton, Adam Gopnik, and Simon Schama.