UPC: 9780197500903 | Lovers in Essence: A Kierkegaardian Defense of Romantic Love (Hardcover)

UPC lookup results for: 9780197500903 | Lovers in Essence: A Kierkegaardian Defense of Romantic Love (Hardcover)

Romantic love is a defining phenomenon in human existence and an object of heightened interest for literature art popular culture and psychology. But what is romantic love and why is it typically experienced as so central? Sharon Krishek s primary aim in this work is to explore the nature of romantic love through the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard and in doing so to defend it as a moral phenomenon. She does so by developing a connection between love and selfhood here explained in terms of one s distinct individuality. To be a self she claims is to possess a name that is an individual essence. It is when we love that we regard people by their names; we respond to who they truly are. Therefore love is a correspondence between essences: if Jane Eyre loves Edward Rochester she responds to him being who he is by virtue of her being who she is. The conception of being thus correspondent has important implications as to the moral and spiritual value of romantic love. Relying on Kierkegaard s analysis of the self of faith and of love–even if sometimes in a way that departs from Kierkegaard s explicit position–Krishek explores these implications construing romantic love as a desirable phenomenon emotionally morally and spiritually.