How the French Invented Love: Nine Hundred Years of Passion and Romance

by Marilyn Yalom



An entertaining and masterful history of love � la fran�aise by acclaimed scholar Marilyn Yalom. Spanning the Middle Ages to the present, How the French Invented Love explores a love-obsessed culture through its great works of literature, interlaced with the author's delicious personal anecdotes-for fans of Alain de Botton, Adam Gopnik, and Simon Schama.

"How the French Invented Love is absolutely marvelous, so lively and learned. . . . Marilyn Yalom's book is a distinguished contribution to our experience of a great literature, as well as an endearing memoir." -Diane Johnson, author of Lulu in Marrakech and Le Divorce.      

How the French love love! It occupies an honored place in their sense of identity, on a par with fashion, food, wine, and the rights of man. A Frenchman or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. For hundreds of years, the French have championed themselves as guides to the art of love through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. Yet no English book has seriously addressed the subject of French ideas about love. No one has followed the roadmap of French literary landmarks, which explore every nuance of love as it evolved over the centuries-until now.
In How the French Invented Love, acclaimed scholar Marilyn Yalom distills her readings of French literary works and the memories of her experiences in France to discover the central tenets of that culture's gospel of love.
While certain currents sweep through the centuries, each chapter represents love in its particular age, fashioned by what the French call mentalit�s-that is, constellations of ideas and attitudes prevalent at a certain time and place. Collectively, these cultural moments reveal how the concept and practice of love has continued and changed from the Middle Ages to our own beleaguered moment.
How the French Invented Love
Through Yalom's romance-tinged literary detective hunt, we shall discover not only how the French invented love, but also how they have kept it vibrant for 900 years-a narrative of love through the ages that will help us distinguish what is unique in the French experience and also what may be universal.
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