Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The erotic motive in literature

The erotic motive in literature

Mordell, Albert

Paperback

Literary CriticismFiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 9389247268
ISBN13: 9789389247268
Publisher: Alpha Ed
Published: Jun 29 2019
Pages: 258
Weight: 0.73
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Why do great books ache with longing? Desire has always shaped stories. In The Erotic Motive in Literature, Albert Mordell brings bracing early 20th century criticism to the page, tracing how sex, attraction and taboo pulse beneath the canon. Written when Freud was remaking intellectual life, Mordell treats the erotic as an artistic force, not a sideshow. These literary criticism essays move with the confidence of a literary theory classic, linking the psychology of literature to craft: character, imagery, myth, and the secret engines of plot. Mordell reads widely across periods and traditions, showing how sexuality in literature appears not only in explicit scenes but in displaced signs and patterns: a sustained erotic symbolism analysis of what writers hint, sublimate, and dramatise. Grounded in freudian literary interpretation, the book sits at the crossroads of psychoanalysis and literature, illuminating recurring desire and love motifs that shape humour, tragedy, romance, and spiritual yearning. For modernist era literary studies, it captures a turning point in criticism, when the unconscious became a working tool of interpretation. It remains an academic reference book for scholars and an incisive student study guide for anyone learning to read between the lines, with plenty for curious general readers, too. Collectors of classic-literature criticism will appreciate its candour and its place in the debate today. Republished by Alpha Editions in a careful modern edition, this volume preserves the spirit of the original while making it effortless to enjoy today - a heritage title prepared for readers and collectors alike.

10 different editions

Also available

Also in

Literary Criticism

View All