The Making Of Romantic Love: Longing And Sexuality In Europe, South Asia, And Japan, 900-1200 Ce (chicago Studies In Practices Of Meaning)
by William M. Reddy /
2012 / English / PDF
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In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a
thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at
eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. Seeking a refuge
from the very serious condemnations of the Church and relying on
a courtly culture that was already preoccupied with honor and
secrecy, European poets, romance writers, and lovers devised a
vision of love as something quite different from desire.
Romantic love was thus born as a movement of covert
resistance.
In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a
thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at
eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. Seeking a refuge
from the very serious condemnations of the Church and relying on
a courtly culture that was already preoccupied with honor and
secrecy, European poets, romance writers, and lovers devised a
vision of love as something quite different from desire.
Romantic love was thus born as a movement of covert
resistance.
In
InThe Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in
Europe, South Asia, and Japan
The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in
Europe, South Asia, and Japan, William M. Reddy illuminates
the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish
desire and render it innocent—or innocent enough. Reddy strikes
out from this historical moment on an international exploration
of love, contrasting the medieval development of romantic love in
Europe with contemporaneous eastern traditions in Bengal and
Orissa, and in Heian Japan from 900-1200 CE, where one finds no
trace of an opposition between love and desire. In this
comparative framework, Reddy tells an appealing tale about the
rise and fall of various practices of longing, underscoring the
uniqueness of the European concept of sexual desire.
, William M. Reddy illuminates
the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish
desire and render it innocent—or innocent enough. Reddy strikes
out from this historical moment on an international exploration
of love, contrasting the medieval development of romantic love in
Europe with contemporaneous eastern traditions in Bengal and
Orissa, and in Heian Japan from 900-1200 CE, where one finds no
trace of an opposition between love and desire. In this
comparative framework, Reddy tells an appealing tale about the
rise and fall of various practices of longing, underscoring the
uniqueness of the European concept of sexual desire.