The Phenomenology of Love and Reading [Paperback]

The current revival of interest in ethics in literary criticism coincides fortuitously with a revival of interest in love in philosophy. The literary return to ethics also coincides with a spate of neuroscientific discoveries about cognition and emotion. But without a philosophical grounding this new work cannot speak convincingly about literature's relationship to our ethical lives. Jean-Luc Marion's articulation of a phenomenology of love provides this philosophical grounding.

The Phenomenology of Love and Readingaccepts Jean-Luc Marion's argument that love matters for who we are more than anything-more than cognition and more than being itself. Cassandra Falke shows how reading can strengthen our capacity to love by giving us practice in love?s habits-attention, empathy, and a willingness to be overwhelmed. Confounding our expectations, literature equips us for the confounding events of love, which, Falke suggests, are not rare and fleeting, but rather constitute the most meaningful and durable part of our everyday life.

Cassandra Falkeis Professor of English Literature and Culture at the University of Troms?, Norway. Her previous books include Literature by the Working Class: English Autobiography, 1820-1848 (2013) and, as editor,Intersections in Christianity and Critical Theory(2010). She has also published articles about English Romanticism, literary theory, and liberal arts education.

To write on phenomenology and literature requires an author who reads with exacting delicacy and who construes demanding philosophy with a high level of clarity. Cassandra Falke is just this person.The Phenomenology of Love and Readingis a book of twofold significance: at once an invitation to read literature with Jean-Luc Marion, eminent phenomenologist of love, and a study of what is involved when we read-reallyread-narrative fiction and poetry. Kevin Hart, Edwin B Kyle Professor of Christian Studies, University of Virginl“Õ