Table of Contents

Dedication
Epigraph

Introduction: Love is Love is Love.

1. Eros in Ancient Athens
2. Platonic Love
3. Courtly Love
4. Affective Individualism and the Conjugal Family
5. Novel Passions
6. Lawrence’s Love
7. The Classical Sociology of Love
8. Religion, Rationality and Eroticism in Max Weber
9. Love in Late Modernity

Conclusion: Reclaiming the Romantic Imaginary

References
Index

Promotional Information

A philosophical and intellectual history of passionate love, exploring why the romantic imagination forms such a central part of human social life.

About the Author

Finn Bowring is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at Cardiff University, UK. He is the author of Science, Seeds and Cyborgs: Biotechnology and the Appropriation of Life (2003) and Hannah Arendt: An Introduction (2011).

Reviews

Offers fascinating, wide-ranging scholarship on erotic love.
*Times Higher Education*

Erotic Love in Sociology, Philosophy and Literature provides rich intellectual resources to think with, and about, love. In a sweep that takes us from ancient Athens through courtly love to late modernity, it demands that we engage with the multiple lenses through which love has been understood – such as the philosophical, the literary, the historical, the political and the sociological. It is a thoughtful, ambitious and deeply engaged book, characterised by a generosity of intellectual engagement and a marked curiosity about the power of feeling. It is a book to learn from, but also to enjoy.
*Claire Langhamer, Professor Of Modern British History, University of Sussex, UK*