Eros in Mourning: From Homer to Lacan [Paperback]

Henry Staten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2001

Eros in Mourning begins with a reading of the Iliad that shows how Homer, not yet influenced by the ideology of transcendence, analyzes the structure of unassuageable mourning in a way that is as up-to-date as the latest poststructuralism. Then, in readings of Dante, Hamlet, La Princess de Clèves, Heart of Darkness, and Lacan, Staten depicts the "thanato-erotic" hysteria that is set off by the specter of the dead and decomposing body that is also the body of sexual love and which, in the "transcendentalizing" tradition, is more female than male. Yet, St. John, certain troubadours, and Milton offer glimpses of a more affirmative relation to "eros in mourning."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Eros in Mourning situates Jacques Lacan in the thanatoerotophobic tradition of misogyny. Luminous and erudite textual-historical analyses ofthe European tradition from Homer to Conrad perform the task. On this trajectory, Staten opens up Plato and Courtly Love, Hamlet and ParadiseLost, Dante and Madame de Lafayette in new ways. A compelling and brilliant book.

(Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 2005)

At the end of Henry Staten's breathtaking Eros in Mourning we are left to stare blindly into the awesome face of that which is said to transfix the canonical avatars of Western man from the grieving hero Akhilleus (Achilles) in Homer's Iliad to the death-driven psychoanalyst in The Seminar of Jacques Lacan... A splendid series of readings.

(Steven Z. Levine Bryn Mawr Classical Review )

Staten is at his most astonishing when he illustrates how texts that on the manifest level appear to advocate an idealizing preservation of the self, on a latent one advocate a radical embrace of mortality and an absolute expenditure of the self.

(Elisabeth Bronfen Modern Language Review )

Each chapter is a tour de force of its own. The chapter on Christianity alone, with its extraordinary Nietzschean affirmation of the figure of Christ, tells more than a whole bag of the usual cultural studies! If you did not read this book, don't say you were not warned what you are missing!

(Slavoj Zizek, Institute for Social Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia )

Eros in Mourning is a brilliant, precisely, powerfully, and passionately argued analysis of the structure of mourning fundamental to Western transcendental thinking. Staten is a superb reader, engaging us in levels of his texts that make it clear why they earned canonical status.

(Charles Altieri, University of California, Berkeley )

Eros in Mourning offers the groundwork for a new poetics, which we can confidently call a poetics of mourning.

(Cultural Critique )

Review

"Eros in Mourning situates Jacques Lacan in the thanatoerotophobic tradition of misogyny. Luminous and erudite textual-historical analyses ofthe European tradition from Homer to Conrad perform the task. On this trajectory, Staten opens up Plato and Courtly Love, Hamlet and ParadiseLost, Dante and Madame de Lafayette in new ways. A compelling and brilliant book." -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (November 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801869994
• ISBN-13: 978-0801869990
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,128,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Work, October 5, 2002

By 

Flounder (Substitution Instance) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eros in Mourning: From Homer to Lacan (Paperback)

I am something of a fan of Staten's work. I am a former U of U English graduate student, and so I have had the pleasure of sitting in a Staten course on Lacan and Derrida. I also recommend his U of Nebraska text on Derrida and Wittgenstein.

This is a deep and evocative book. For anyone interested in literary theory and criticism (namely dealing with Lacan or Derrida), I highly recommend this book. I also recommend the work of Borch-Jacobsen and H. Adams, among others.

The most interesting material here is on Dante, Hamlet, and the Lacan chapter. The book is highly interesting and thought-provoking from beginning to end.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eros without avoidance or illusion? -amor fati?, August 30, 2008

By 

david 1234 (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eros in Mourning: From Homer to Lacan (Paperback)

I am a Nietzschean, and came to know of Staten via the formidable

"Nietzsche's Voice".

"Eros in Mourning" deals with the pervasiveness of the (post-Homeric) Platonic and Christian disapproval of full attachment to any mortal being; with the fear and suffering that keep this ideology alive and relevant, and with the costs involved in adhering to such an ideology. It is, overtly academic in appearance, and pursues the "dialectics of

mourning", (rather than mourning, as such), at the centre of various canonical western texts, culminating in Lacan. Essentially the book is about transcendence and whether we can really do without it, or whether we are capable of a dionysian perspective.