This book discusses the complexities of love and the nature of erotic passion as these appear in the great love stories of the world. Starting with the story of Romeo and Juliet and its roots
in European Christianity, the authors uncover hidden depths of cultural and universal significance in famous romantic tales of the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent-’Layla and Majnun’,
’Heer and Ranjha’, ’Sohni and Mahinwal’, ’Vis and Ramin’, and ’Radha and Krishna’. Moving westward again, Kakar and Ross look at the Greek myth of Oedipus, the Celtic saga of Tristan and
Isolde, the tragic drama of Hamlet, the legend of Phaedra and Hippolytus, and a contemporary handling of the love theme in the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. This new edition, published after 25
years of the first edition, includes an Epilogue which re-evaluates the authors’ assertions about romantic and erotic love in the context of contemporary psychoanalysis and modern literary
theory.
