Guy Sircello – Love and Beauty

Building on concepts developed in his previously published New Theory of Beauty, Guy Sircello constructs a bold and provocative theory of love in which the objects of love are the qualities that “bear” beauty and the pleasure of all love is “erotic,” without being “sexual.” The theory reveals a continuity of subject matter between premodern notions of love and modern notions of aesthetic pleasure, thus providing grounds for criticizing modern tendencies to isolate the aesthetic both culturally and psychologically and to separate it from its home in the human body. The author begins with an analysis of enjoyment that reduces all enjoyment to the enjoyment of the “experience of qualities.” He explains how we experience qualities as “circulating” in a special form of “space” that includes our own bodies, the external world, and their interpenetration. Sircello generalizes this analysis to encompass all forms of love and grounds the pleasure of all love–aesthetic or nonaesthetic, personal or nonpersonal, sexual or nonsexual–in an experience of the form of an “overall bodily caress.”

This book is in Good readable condition. It has been read and may show some age & wear to the wraps/boards, or light creasing/wear to the pages. The binding may show very minimal wear, or be fully intact. Generally, most wear will solely be superficial.

*This came from a former professor’s collection, who used low-tack post-it notes to bookmark/annotate his books. Most of them have been removed, however it is possible that a stray few were overlooked. If this is the case, they are both unobtrusive and easily removable. Additionally, there may be annotations. In most, however not all cases, they are solely in the introduction/foreword. Any clarifying questions should be emailed to tornlight@gmail.com*

*Image in the listing is stock. There may be variation in the actual product.