Tales of Love

by Julia Kristeva

Book Overview

Her analysis deals with the role of narcissism and idealization in the formation of a love object. She accounts for the role of the death drive by coining the term "love/hate."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231060254
• ISBN13: 9780231060257
• Release Date: April 1987
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 414 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

very sweet

I read this book from start to finish and just couldn't get enough of it. A friend of mine in college gave it to me even though i'm not really an avid reader like she is. It kept me up many a night. So check it out. Also check out this other book she gave me called "Tales of love, ugliness and stars under the sea." Also very awesome. It's more poetic stuff, but i found it equally moving.

An Interesting Love Theory

This book picks up Western love as main theme and analyzes its both diachronic and synchronic aspects. In the first part, Kristeva shows her theory of love as the theory of psychoanalysis. It is very interesting here that her attention is concentrated on transference in psychoanalysis. Then, with this theory of love, we can read histories of Western love from Plato, the Bible, Narcissus, to St. Thomas and heroes and heroines in love stories such as Don Juan, Romeo and Juliet, and Mary. These histories and stories are in harmony with the next part in which Kristeva analyzes discourses of love in texts of Troubadour, Jeanne Guyon, Baudelaire, Stendhale, and Bataille. Reading here, we can learn what Western love has ever been, which enables us to think about modern love. Finally, Kristeva mentions to the crisis of love, which emerges now because of the abolition of psychic space and discusses psychoanalytic role, especially, transferencefs one. Kristeva shows various aspects of Western love as a mosaic of histories, stories, and texts, which are connected logically each other by psychoanalysis and the theory of love. Therefore, this book has a very clear composition. This is why I like this book. Another reason is that I am interested in Kristevafs idea which differentiates Western love from Japanese one. I think that she also shows how to approach Japanese love which has been thought to be changed dynamically these years, not only Western one.