Love in a Time of Loneliness: Three Essays on Drive and Desire

by Paul Verhaeghe

Plym Peters (Translator) and Tony Langham (Translator)

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The first essay, "The Impossible Couple", is both a humorous and razor-sharp analysis of the contemporary relationship between man and woman. In the second essay, "Fleeing Fathers", the author demonstrates that today the Freudian Oedipus complex has disappeared, with a resulting shattering of classic gender roles. Post-modern morals are strange compared to previous morality, because they convey an obligation to enjoy. Things become even stranger when one finds that the expected enjoyment fails to come and, instead of that, we are faced with boredom, anxiety, and anger. The author reconsiders the opposition between Eros and Thanatos as an opposition between two forms of sexual pleasure. The fact that this opposition is ever present in heterosexual love demonstrates that gender differentiation goes beyond temporal cultural forms. Accessibly written and provocatively argued, Love in a Time of Loneliness is a polemic whose very informality belies its serious intent. In these three fascinating essays, The author leaves the ordinary paths of thinking and sets out to discover what drives us in sex and love.

  • ISBN13 9780429930157
  • Publish Date 17 April 2018 (first published 17 April 1999)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
  • Imprint Routledge
  • Format eBook
  • Pages 224
  • Language English