Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:37:19.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can We Read the Book of Love?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Richard Terdiman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Love is strange.

—Mickey and Sylvia

Some people say love is incomprehensible, that language cannot capture it. Some people never stop talking, thinking, writing, speculating, and theorizing about it. Maybe our unending discourse about love arises in the tension that stretches it between ineffability and expression.

Type
The Changing Profession
Information
PMLA , Volume 126 , Issue 2 , March 2011 , pp. 472 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Amen, Daniel G. The Brain in Love. New York: Crown, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Nancy. How Novels Think: The Limits of British Individualism from 1719–1900. New York: Columbia UP, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. 1946. Trans. Willard R. Trask. 1953. New ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Augustine. Confessions. Trans. Vernon J. Bourke. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1953. Print.Google Scholar
Badhwar, Neera. “Love.” Practical Ethics. Ed. LaFollette, Hugh. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. 42–69. Print.Google Scholar
Baker, Mickey, and Vanderpool, Sylvia. “Love Is Strange.” Perf. Mickey and Sylvia. Groove-RCA, 1957. 45 rpm record.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. A Lover's Discourse: Fragments. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill, 1978. Print.Google Scholar
Baudelaire, Charles. “La beauté.” Œuvres complètes. Ed. Pichois, Claude. Paris: Gallimard, 1975. 1: 21. Print. La bibliothèque de la Pléiade.Google Scholar
Berry, Jeff, Greenwich, Ellie, and Spector, Phil, comp. “And When He Walked Me Home.” Perf. the Crystals. Philles, 1963. 45 rpm record.Google Scholar
Certeau, Michel de. The Writing of History. Trans. Tom Conley. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Compagnon, Antoine. La troisième république des lettres, de Flaubert à Proust. Paris: Seuil, 1983. Print.Google Scholar
Dante, Alighieri. La vita nuova. Opere minori. Ed. de Robertis, Domenico and Contini, Gianfranco. Vol. 1. Pt. 1 Milan: Ricciardi, 1984. 3–247. Print.Google Scholar
Davis, Warren, Malone, George, and Patrick, Charles. “Who Wrote the Book of Love?” Perf. the Monotones. Argo, 1958. 45 rpm record.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Religion. Ed. Anidjar, Gil. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. “Jacques Derrida on Love and Being.” YouTube. 26 Jan. 2007. Web. 20 Aug. 2009.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. 1967. Corrected ed. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Ed. Borradori, Giovanna. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. Without Alibi. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Frances. Pornography, the Theory: What Utilitarianism Did to Action. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Fisher, Philip. The Vehement Passions. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flaubert, Gustave. Correspondance. Ed. Bruneau, Jean. Vol. 2. Paris: Gallimard, 1980. Print. La bibliothèque de la Pléiade.Google Scholar
Flaubert, Gustave. La tentation de Saint-Antoine. Œuvres. Ed. Thibaudet, Albert and Dumesnil, René. Vol. 1. Paris: Gallimard, 1951. 57–198. Print. La bibliothèque de la Pléiade.Google Scholar
Flesch, William. Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Ford, James E. Rationalist Criticism of Greek Tragedy. Lanham: Lexington, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol. 1. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1978. Print.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. “The Dynamics of Transference.” 1912. Freud, Standard Edition 12:97–108.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. “Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis.” 1909. Freud, Standard Edition 10:155–249.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works. Trans. and ed. James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey, and Alan Tyson. 24 vols. London: Hogarth, 1962–66. Print.Google Scholar
Gerth, H. H., and Wright Mills, C. Introduction. Weber, From Max Weber 3–74.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Trans. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Ed. Moldenhauer, Eva and Michel, Karl Markus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Print. Vol. 3 of Werke in 20 Bänden.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977. Print.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. Die Metaphysik der Sitten. Ed. Kellermann, Benzion. Berlin: Cassirer, 1916. Print. Vol. 7 of Werke.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. The Science of Right. Trans. W. Hastie. Clark: Lawbook Exchange, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Kern, Stephen. A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Kipnis, Laura. Against Love: A Polemic. New York: Pantheon, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Lanson, Gustave. “Literary History and Sociology.” Trans. Nicholas T. Rand and Roberta Hatcher. PMLA 110.2 (1995): 220–35. Print.Google Scholar
Marcus, Steven. The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England. 1966. New ed. New York: Basic, 1975. Print.Google Scholar
Marion, Jean-Luc. The Erotic Phenomenon. Trans. Stephen E. Lewis. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Marion, Jean-Luc. Prolegomena to Charity. Trans. Stephen Lewis. New York: Fordham UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Marion, Jean-Luc. The Visible and the Revealed. Trans. Christina M. Gschwandtner et al. New York: Fordham UP, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Nancy, Jean-Luc. Une pensée finie. Paris: Galilée, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. Vincent B. Leitch, gen. ed. New York: Norton, 2010. Print.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
Povinelli, Elizabeth A. The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality. Durham: Duke UP, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Proust, Marcel. À la recherche du temps perdu. Ed. Tadié, Jean-Yves. Paris: Gallimard, 1989. Print. La bibliothèque de la Pléiade.Google Scholar
Proust, Marcel. Contre Sainte-Beuve. Paris: Gallimard, 1971. Print. La bibliothèque de la Pléiade.Google Scholar
Racine, Jean. Phèdre. Théâtre complet. Ed. Rat, Maurice. Paris: Garnier, 1960. 543–93. Print.Google Scholar
Riffaterre, Michael. “Undecidability as Hermeneutic Constraint.” Literary Theory Today. Ed. Collier, Peter and Geyer-Ryan, Helga. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990. 109–24. Print.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. “Nineteenth-Century Idealism and Twentieth-Century Textualism.” Consequences of Pragmatism (Essays: 1972–1980). Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1982. 139–59. Print.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloîse. Ed. Pomeau, René. Paris: Garnier, 1960. Print.Google Scholar
Lawrence A., Scaff Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. Blakemore Evans, G. et al. Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, 1968. 1058–99. Print.Google Scholar
“Sylvia Robinson.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.Google Scholar
Stendhal. Le rouge et le noir. Ed. Castex, Pierre-Georges. Paris: Garnier, 1973. Print.Google Scholar
Stoekl, Allan. “From Culture to Canon: Lanson's Mission in America.” ADFL Bulletin 26.2 (1995): 12–15. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terdiman, Richard. Body and Story: The Practice and Ethics of Theoretical Conflict. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Terdiman, Richard. Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Viking, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
van Zuylen, Marina. Monomania: The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2005. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Owen. “Love Speech.” Critical Inquiry 34 (2008): 491–508. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Ed. Gerth, H. H. and Wright Mills, C. New York: Oxford UP, 1946. Print.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. “Science as a Vocation.” Weber, From Max Weber 129–56.Google Scholar
Weiner, Jonathan. Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior. New York: Knopf, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Whitman, Walt. “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.” The Portable Walt Whitman. Ed. Warner, Michael. New York: Penguin, 2004. 217. Print.Google Scholar
Williams, Linda. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible.” 1989. Expanded ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Williams, Linda., ed. Porn Studies. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. C. K. Ogden. New York: Harcourt, 1922. Print.Google Scholar
Ziering-Kofman, Amy, and Dick, Kirby, eds. “Derrida-Screenplay.” Derrida: Screenplay and Essays on the Film. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005. 51–109. Print.Google Scholar