LEADER 03864nam 2200589 a 450 001 9910781204703321 005 20230725050553.0 010 $a1-280-57169-1 010 $a9786613601292 010 $a0-300-17723-2 024 7 $a10.12987/9780300177237 035 $a(CKB)2550000000039802 035 $a(StDuBDS)AH24486805 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000523969 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11332678 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000523969 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10543636 035 $a(PQKB)11747366 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3420711 035 $a(DE-B1597)485746 035 $a(OCoLC)740447233 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780300177237 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3420711 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10482349 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL360129 035 $a(OCoLC)923596314 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000039802 100 $a20101201d2011 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aLove$b[electronic resource] $ea history /$fSimon May 210 $aNew Haven $cYale University Press$d2011 215 $a1 online resource (304 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-300-11830-9 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $aLove plays God -- The foundation of Western love : Hebrew scripture -- From physical desire to paradise : Plato -- Love as perfect friendship : Aristotle -- Love as sexual desire : Lucretius and Ovid -- Love as the supreme virtue : Christianity -- Why Christian love isn't unconditional -- Women on top : love and the troubadours -- How human nature became loveable : from the high Middle Ages to the Renaissance -- Love as joyful understanding of the whole : Spinoza -- Love as enlightened romanticism : Rousseau -- Love as religion : Schlegel and Novalis -- Love as the urge to procreate : Schopenhauer -- Love as affirmation of life : Nietzsche -- Love as a history of loss : Freud -- Love as terror and tedium : Proust -- Love reconsidered. 330 $aLove-unconditional, selfless, unchanging, sincere, and totally accepting-is worshipped today as the West's only universal religion. To challenge it is one of our few remaining taboos. In this pathbreaking and superbly written book, philosopher Simon May does just that, dissecting our resilient ruling ideas of love and showing how they are the product of a long and powerful cultural heritage.Tracing over 2,500 years of human thought and history, May shows how our ideal of love developed from its Hebraic and Greek origins alongside Christianity until, during the last two centuries, "God is love" became "love is God"-so hubristic, so escapist, so untruthful to the real nature of love, that it has booby-trapped relationships everywhere with deluded expectations. Brilliantly, May explores the very different philosophers and writers, both skeptics and believers, who dared to think differently: from Aristotle's perfect friendship and Ovid's celebration of sex and "the chase," to Rousseau's personal authenticity, Nietzsche's affirmation, Freud's concepts of loss and mourning, and boredom in Proust. Against our belief that love is an all-powerful solution to finding meaning, security, and happiness in life, May reveals with great clarity what love actually is: the intense desire for someone whom we believe can ground and affirm our very existence. The feeling that "makes the world go round" turns out to be a harbinger of home--and in that sense, of the sacred. 606 $aLove$xHistory 615 0$aLove$xHistory. 676 $a128/.4609 700 $aMay$b Simon$g(Simon Philip Walter)$0908902 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910781204703321 996 $aLove$93691562 997 $aUNINA