The Double Flame: Love and EroticismIn The Double Flame, Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz explores the intimate connection between sex, eroticism, and love - themes that have been a constant in his writing, from his first published poems to the great works of his maturity. Beginning with Plato's Symposium, he gives a short history of love and eroticism in literature throughout the ages: from the influence of the great cities Alexandria and Rome on the development of love poetry, to courtly love in Heian Japan and twelfth-century France, to love in modern novels such as Madame Bovary and Ulysses. Rich in scope, The Double Flame examines everything from taboo to repression, Carnival to Lent, Sade to Freud, Original Sin to artificial intelligence. |
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Al Andalus amorous animal antiquity appears Arabic attraction beauty beginning believe beloved body Breton carnal Cathars Catullus ceased century chastity Christian Church civilization concept contemplation copulation courtly love creatures Crick D. H. Lawrence Dante death desire Diotima divinity earth Edelman elements Eros erotic eroticism eternal Ezra Pound fate feeling freedom friendship Greek Hegel human Ibn Hazm idea of love imagination lady libertine literature live lover meaning mind modern moral mystery mystic nature Neoplatonism novel object Odette once opposite passion person Petrarch Philemon and Baucis philosophy physical Platonic poems poetic poetry political Propertius Provençal poets Psyche Quevedo reality relationship religion religious reproduction Sade sensation sentiment sexuality Simaetha social society soul speak spiritual story T. S. Eliot Tantrism Taoism thing thinking machine thought tion tradition transformed troubadours turn victim vision woman women word