Love in the Western World (Princeton Paperbacks)

Rating:
Summary: A Wandering Classic on Origination of Romance
Review: DeRougemont claims in this classic that the modern notion of romantic love originated in medieval courtly love. He further argues that this medieval notion of romantic love cannot form a proper basis for Christian marriage.

The author traces the tradition of courtly love from the 12th century through the 19th century to modern day. He begins with the legend of Tristan and Isolde and notes the inescapable conflict between passion and marriage. Passion is grounded in an eros that is often spoken of by the poets. Such eros is implicitly selfish and finds its only consummation in death, which means that romantic love includes an unconscious death wish.

The selfishness of passion is at odds with the mature agape love found in Christian marriage. The author claims that his underlying belief is a phrase from Heraclitus, "opposites cooperate, and from their struggle emerges the most beautiful harmony." DeRougemont does not argue that passion should be eliminated from marriage; rather marriage cannot be founded upon passionate love alone.

Rating:
Summary: A Wandering Classic on Origination of Romance
Review: DeRougemont claims in this classic that the modern notion of romantic love originated in medieval courtly love. He further argues that this medieval notion of romantic love cannot form a proper basis for Christian marriage.

The author traces the tradition of courtly love from the 12th century through the 19th century to modern day. He begins with the legend of Tristan and Isolde and notes the inescapable conflict between passion and marriage. Passion is grounded in an eros that is often spoken of by the poets. Such eros is implicitly selfish and finds its only consummation in death, which means that romantic love includes an unconscious death wish.

The selfishness of passion is at odds with the mature agape love found in Christian marriage. The author claims that his underlying belief is a phrase from Heraclitus, "opposites cooperate, and from their struggle emerges the most beautiful harmony." DeRougemont does not argue that passion should be eliminated from marriage; rather marriage cannot be founded upon passionate love alone.

Rating:
Summary: One of all time greatest
Review: It is a great reading, though not easy, to fully understand this book you need to have a knowledge of european literature concepts (from the courtly love on).
If you don't have such fundamentals however you will only find it a little more difficult but not less interesting.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who want to understand more about not only his way of falling in and feeling Love, but also about his Culture.
Very interesting also the comparisons and discussions about the Eastern culture and influence on the West.
It's a little bit depressing thinking that such books are nowadays sold at such low prices and out-of-print; the subject and discussions have not actually gone out-of-print and probably won't for a couple of centuries ahead.

Rating:
Summary: Passionate critique of passion.
Review: This is a curious, compelling study that is likely to generate as much controversy for its style as for its amalgamation of historical, cultural, literary, operatic, biblical and theological traditions. Rougement traces the "courtly love" tradition from its orgins among 12th century troubadors in southern France through the high Romanticism of 19th century opera to the modern-day consequences of a love that is based on Eros, delusion, and selfishness--a passion that lives for passion, and whose only consummation can be death (for were it to endure, to be exposed to the glaring light of day, it would no longer be romantic passion). Rougement's scholarship is solid, his interpretations provocative, and his proximity to his subject uncomfortably "close" for someone bearing the mantle of cultural critic and scholar. In fact, it's impossible not to feel the conflicted emotions of the author himself. On the one hand, he presents himself as the enemy of "Eros" and proponent of "Agape," as the critic of immature, romantic passion and the defender of mature relationships based on a realistic "dialogue" between two unique, complex individuals. On the other hand, he reveals the heart and soul of an incurable romantic, someone who has been love's thrall, who has been swept up in the dark rapture and sublimely lyrical death wish that is Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." But far from being a liability, that underlying tension provides the book's argument with an energy, vitality and, yes, "passion" that is lacking in similar studies of this fascinating topic. At times I was suspicious that the author might turn out to be an idealogue, tedious moralist, or Christian "fundamentalist," given the zeal and curiously evangelical flavor of many of his sentences. Not to worry. His intellectual kinship is with Kierkegaard, though he finally falls short of the "leap of faith" and spiritual "marriage" achieved by the melancholy Dane. As proof of the foregoing, I defy any close reader of this text to leave the book more repelled than enticed, entranced, and ultimately entrapped by the Tristan and Isolde myth. Rarely have I read a work in which an author so convincingly argues against himself.

Rating:
Summary: A Valentine
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite books, and I think I first read it years ago when I was on a Camille Paglia jag and found it referenced in one of her books. As a young writer, I'm profoundly challenged by this book to rethink structure, conflict, and pressure applied to characters, as well as conventional portrayal of marriage and eros. I'd also recommend "Marriage: Dead or Alive."