Description
Book SynopsisThe Poetics of Tenderness a 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. It maintains 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,
Table of ContentsPrologue: Falling in Love The White Heron: An Introduction I. Hooking Up II. The Smart That Has No Name III. Lolita IV. Love Objects V. Kissing Cousins Epilogue
