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In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome

Autor David Konstan
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 29 aug 2018
This book is about love in the classical world -- not erotic passion but the kind of love that binds together intimate members of a family and very close friends, but which may also extend to include a wider range of individuals for whom we care deeply. David Konstan begins the book with a discussion of friendship, focusing particularly on the Greek notion that in friendship the identities of two friends all but merge into one. The book then turns to the question of loyalty, and why loyalty seems not to have achieved the status of a virtue in classical thought, before considering love in relation to generosity, favors, and gratitude. There follows a discussion of grief, which is a symptom of the loss of a loved one. The book concludes with an examination of love as the basis of civic solidarity.In each case, love is the gravitational center of the relations under examination. In this, the book departs from the more usual analysis of these affective ties in terms of reciprocity, which in one way or another involves an expectation of return. Seen this way, such relationships seem to have a selfish or at least self-centered dimension, as distinct from truly other-regarding attitudes. While it is true that the ancient sources sometimes describe these relations, including friendship, as forms of mutual obligation, there is also a counter strand that emphasizes genuine altruism, and it is this aspect that the book seeks to bring out. A close look at how love drew into its orbit the various relations examined in this book sheds light not only on some central features of ancient habits of thought but also on our own contemporary notions of love, altruism, and friendship.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780190887872
ISBN-10: 0190887877
Pagini: 232
Dimensiuni: 145 x 211 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.39 kg
Editura: Oxford University Press
Colecția OUP USA
Locul publicării:New York, United States

Recenzii

Konstan (classics, New York Univ.) provides original insights into love in ancient times... Though brief, the book challenges traditional belief on ancient love and theoretical compensation in a concise and clear way. Relationships today are perceived quite differently than they were by the ancient Romans and Greeks, for whom love was much more subtle. These subtleties are the backbone of Konstan's study. Highly Recommended.
The tension between altruism and reciprocity runs through the entire work, without Konstan falling into the trap of anachronism ... This book clearly shows that Greek and Roman writers (especially philosophers) -- among others -- have elaborated what we now define as altruistic views of love and friendship.
The book provides a welcome extension to currently available studies on love in the classical world, drawing as it does on a broader canvas and providing a refreshing reminder that other forms of love rather than the erotic were just as prominent and just as socially, politically and philosophically relevant. In so doing the author sheds light on some hitherto obscure features not just of ancient life but of modern life as well.
In this elegant and entertaining book David Konstan probes the affective, ethical, and social dimensions of love and friendship in ancient Greece and Rome. Ranging widely over literary and philosophical sources, Konstan deftly explores issues of selfhood, identity, and other -- concerns that are as relevant today as they were for the ancients.
For a long time David Konstan has been our leading interpreter of Greek and Roman friendly love. In this masterful new book, he achieves yet deeper insights, showing how an ideal of disinterested love informs a wider set of values: loyalty, gratitude, grief, and political solidarity. Written with Konstan's sui generis combination of insight, scholarship, philosophical rigor, and grace, In the Orbit of Love simultaneously illuminates and charms.

Notă biografică

David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University. Among his books are Pity Transformed (2001); The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks (2006); Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (2010); and Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea (2014). He is a past president of the American Philological Association, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.