The Anatomy of Love

This article aims to give a psychological interpretation to Alain de Botton’s novels On Love and The Course of Love, doubling the philosophical take on love that runs in the background of the novels. Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love will be applied to de Botton’s two novels, in an attempt to reach an understanding of love by means of psychological deconstruction, following the dynamic of the three components of the love triangle: passion, intimacy and decision \ commitment. References will also be made to Sternberg’s complementary theories on love, i.e. the theory that conceptualizes love as a story and the theory of love as a socio-cultural artefact.Key words: love, psychology, triangular theory, love story, cultureAlain de Botton’s book On Love, presented to the readers as a novel telling the love story of Chloe and the narrator, is a full-circle account that unfolds between two plane flights: on the first flight, from Paris to London, the two future lovers are seated one...

Alciphron's Letters (2nd or 3rd century AD) belong to Greek fictional epistolography, a subgenre whose literary conventions forbid direct portrayals of nudity or physical contacts. However, once the author chose erotica as a prevalent theme for his letters, he found himself entrapped; he had the obligation to obey the “chastity” of the literary subgenre and avoid any drifts into pornography and impropriety, but, at the same time, he was expected to satisfy his readers' curiosity and tantalize their imagination with shy innuendos. Consequently, he had to make sure that his stylistic devices used for erotic allusions (metaphors, metonymies, euphemisms etc.) were as vivid and various in origin as possible. Those erotic expressions are at the focus of this paper. In accordance with the given theme, the ones that contain the idea of violence, conflict, and warfare or its consequences are scrutinized. Once the erotic expressions of this kind are detected, they will be placed into a wider con...

Francuski medievalist i jedan od najznačajnijih povjesničara Europe, sad već pokojni Jacques Le Goff, napisao je knjižicu pod naslovom Treba li povijest zaista dijeliti na razdoblja? Većina ljudi ne promišlja o ovom pitanju, a da nije samo riječ o problemu koji ostaje na margini svakodnevnog života svjedoče i podatci da mnogi povjesničari nisu svjesni ovog pitanja što je utjelovljeno u studijskim programima koji su podijeljeni kronološki po razdobljima i oformljeni po vremenskom slijedu, posebno u Hrvatskoj. Le Goff ide korak naprijed pokazujući zašto je promišljanje o vremenu jedno od temeljnih pitanja povijesne znanosti.Knjižica od 124 stranice sastavljena je od sljedećih osam ključnih poglavlja: Stare periodizacije, Kasna pojava srednjeg vijeka, Povijest, obrazovanje, periodi, Rođenje renesanse, Renesansa danas, Srednji vijek postaje mračno doba, Dugi srednji vijek, Periodizacija i globalizacija. Knjiga započinje Predgovorom i Uvodom, a nakon ovih osam poglavlja slijedi Izabrana bib...

[...] opatica je žena, ali žena koju se ne vidi svaki dan. Muškarci je se ne mogu nauživati u svakodnevnom ophođenju, stoga je žele s još većim žarom, skrivena je, zakukuljena, odsječena od svijeta u samostanu, u zatvoru, u beskrajnom zdanju u kojem se iza svakih vrata skrivaju još jedna. Carlos Fuentes, Constancia i druge priče za djeviceBože, oprosti mi. Možeš razumjeti silnu mahnitost u mojim prstima, vulkansku i suspregnutu potrebu mojih usana, vrelinu, i, o moj Bože, miris. Mnoštvo mirisa, otporne dlačice, znoj, znoj, prosta ruka, neobuzdana, poremećena, gruba. Gruba ruka kreće se u rupi, u kaljuži mojega bića. Svjedok – noć: pozornica za nasuprotnosti, noge i raskriljene proscenije, predstava uživo odakle se mrijeste strašne sablasti. Hitnem se s vrhunca svoje vjere, tijelo mi se razvaljuje u prah: prah koji se slobodno kreće, prah koji živi, prah koji je daleko od tebe, Gospodine. Jer griješim s golemim užitkom! I griješim misleći oživjeti. Gospodine, ja umirem od užitka u rukam...

Love has traditionally been understood either as an objective, transcendentforce, or a subjective ability. Through a number of steps,the article argues that both these options have lost their credibility due to changes in the media through which love is performed. First, the article demonstrates how the attempts,in the life sciences, to explain love biologically or physically reproduce a traditional romantic ideology. Then, the implications of the inflation of explicit love declarations, and the consequences of internet dating, are discussed. What these examples amount to is the fact that the medium is brought to the fore. A consequence of this is that the romantic ideology is strengthened, while the premises of romantic love – the autonomous subject and the transcendent objectivity – are weakened or even dissolved.Keywords:idealism, materialism, narcissism, subjectivity, reification,internet dating, controlJennifer Lopez, Haddaway, Howard Jones – yes, virtually every singer, author,or...

Dead but not Forgotten is a collection of short stories about the characters presented in the thirteen Sookie Stackhouse novels published by Charlaine Harris between 2001 and 2013. The fifteen short stories were not written by Harris herself, but by a series of novelists and best-selling authors. The tales are compelling and their plots are as suspenseful as the original novels by Harris, whose contents they are consistent with. Indeed, the characters are faithful to the spirit of Harris' books and their adventures are a (super)natural and logical continuation or anticipation of what occurs to them in Harris' fictional universe. The stories are indeed set in different time periods: they fill the gaps between the novels or they either precede or follow the facts narrated in Harris' books. Jeffrey J. Mariotte's “Taproot,” for example, focuses on a case assigned to Detective Andy Bellefleur during Sookie's sojourn in Dallas in the second novel. “Nobody's Business,” written by Rachel Caine...