Desire: Love Stories in Western Culture

by Catherine Belsey

In the light of poststructuralist theory, and with reference to the work of Lacan and Derrida in particular, Catherine Belsey argues that fiction - including poetry, drama and film - is paradoxically the most serious location of writing about desire in Western cultura. Beginning with the celebration of true love in contemporary popular romance, and the reluctant scepticism of postmodern novels, she goes on to explore past representation of passion by Chretien de Troyes, Malory, Spenser, Donne, Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, Tennyson and Bram Stoker. Belsey also discusses the role of desire in the utopian writings of Plato, More and William Morris, as well as its treatment by a range of speculative feminists, from Charlotte perkins Gilman to Marge Piercy.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Catherine Belsey is currently Research Professor at Swansea University and formerly Distinguished Research Professor at Cardiff University. Best known for her pioneering book, Critical Practice (Methuen, 1980), Catherine Belsey has an international reputation as a deft and sophisticated critical theorist and subtle and eloquent critic of literature, particularly of Renaissance texts. Her main area of work is on the implications of poststructuralist theory for aspects of cultural history and criticism. Her present project is ’Culture and the Real’, a consideration of the limitations of contemporary constructivism in the light of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Professor Belsey chairs the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, a research forum for discussion and debate on current views of the relation between human beings and culture.

Reviews

[ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

long

[Lindy Brusaschi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good source book at uni for English