Death Desire and Loss in Western Culture

<p><em>Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture</em> is a rich testament to our ubiquitous preoccupation with the tangled web of death and desire. In these pages we find nuanced analysis that blends Plato with Shelley, Hölderlin with Foucault. Dollimore, a gifted thinker, is not content to summarize these texts from afar; instead, he weaves a thread through each to tell the magnificent story of the making of the modern individual.</p> Introduction. I Ancient World. II Mutability, Melancholy and Quest: The Renaissance. III Social Death. IV Modernity and Philosophy: The Authenticity of Nothingness. V The Desire Not To Be: Late Metaphysics and Psychoanalysis. VI Renouncing Death. VII The Aesthetics of Energy. VIII Death and The Homoerotic. Notes. Bibliography. Index.