The Poetics of Tenderness

On Falling in Love

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book The Poetics of Tenderness by Robert Cantwell, Lexington Books
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Robert Cantwell ISBN: 9781498548342
Publisher: Lexington Books Publication: December 13, 2017
Imprint: Lexington Books Language: English
Author: Robert Cantwell
ISBN: 9781498548342
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication: December 13, 2017
Imprint: Lexington Books
Language: English

The Poetics of Tendernessa literary-critical essay on love, grounded in the developmental theory of the British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott and shaped by recent work on the neurobiology and anthropology of love. Itmaintains that sexual love is not merely an artifact or “invention” of culture, but a vital manifestation of the culture-making power itself. Calling upon Andreus Capellanus, Plato, Schopenhauer, Freud, William James, Hardy, Dreiser and Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrence and Tom Stoppard, among others, the book’s aim is to turn the discussion of sexuality around--to substitute for ideas and figures of violence and predation which have dominated our sexual imaginary for more than four decades much older and more durable associations of sex and love with care, affection, beauty, memory, worthiness, and ideality. It argues for a resurrection of tenderness, and holds out the possibility that even where anything goes love may yet be a source of sweetness and light, that mutual respect, equity, justice and decency in the spheres of sex and love will more likely flow from compassion and sympathy than from anger, fear, suspicion, mistrust, resentment, and bitterness.
Close readings of two widely read novels, Dickens’ Great Expectations and Nabokov’s Lolita, preside over the discussion, exploring these authors’ distinctively detailed and probing accounts of love’s unfolding in particular social, cultural, historical and psychological settings.Both novels proceed from deep within the authors’ interior life; both novels release love from its normally deep entanglements with intimacy and isolation, compatibility and incompatibility, social place and social possibility, inspiring in their narrators a prolonged introspective inquiry into an all-consuming preoccupation which ultimately restores them to the moral order.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The Poetics of Tendernessa literary-critical essay on love, grounded in the developmental theory of the British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott and shaped by recent work on the neurobiology and anthropology of love. Itmaintains that sexual love is not merely an artifact or “invention” of culture, but a vital manifestation of the culture-making power itself. Calling upon Andreus Capellanus, Plato, Schopenhauer, Freud, William James, Hardy, Dreiser and Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrence and Tom Stoppard, among others, the book’s aim is to turn the discussion of sexuality around--to substitute for ideas and figures of violence and predation which have dominated our sexual imaginary for more than four decades much older and more durable associations of sex and love with care, affection, beauty, memory, worthiness, and ideality. It argues for a resurrection of tenderness, and holds out the possibility that even where anything goes love may yet be a source of sweetness and light, that mutual respect, equity, justice and decency in the spheres of sex and love will more likely flow from compassion and sympathy than from anger, fear, suspicion, mistrust, resentment, and bitterness.
Close readings of two widely read novels, Dickens’ Great Expectations and Nabokov’s Lolita, preside over the discussion, exploring these authors’ distinctively detailed and probing accounts of love’s unfolding in particular social, cultural, historical and psychological settings.Both novels proceed from deep within the authors’ interior life; both novels release love from its normally deep entanglements with intimacy and isolation, compatibility and incompatibility, social place and social possibility, inspiring in their narrators a prolonged introspective inquiry into an all-consuming preoccupation which ultimately restores them to the moral order.

More books from Lexington Books

Cover of the book Fragmented Identities by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Collectivities by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Israeli Feminism Liberating Judaism by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Israel and Its Arab Minority, 1948–2008 by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Jewish Bodylore by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Aestheticism, Evil, Homosexuality, and Hannibal by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Philosophers of Capitalism by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Disability and Justice by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Dostoevsky's Political Thought by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Race, Gender, and Image Repair Theory by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Isabelle Eberhardt and North Africa by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book The Intellectual Journey of Thomas Berry by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Community Newspapers and the Japanese-American Incarceration Camps by Robert Cantwell
Cover of the book Crafting Culturally Efficacious Teacher Preparation and Pedagogies by Robert Cantwell
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy