Eros in Mourning begins with a reading of the Iliad that shows how Homer, not yet influenced by the ideology of transcendence, analyzes the structure of unassuageable mourning in a way that is as up-to-date as the latest poststructuralism. Then, in readings of Dante, Hamlet, La Princess de Cleves, Heart of Darkness, and Lacan, Staten depicts the -thanato-erotic- hysteria that is set off by the specter of the dead and decomposing body that is also the body of sexual love and which, in the -transcendentalizing- tradition, is more female than male. Yet, St. John,...

"By linking Wittgenstein with Derrida, Staten suggests that the intellectual relevance of deconstruction is wider than the English-speaking public has recognized." Studies in the Humanities

"This work is altogether first rate. It is informative, faithful, rigorous and completely original in its problematization. It is an original theoretical advance which I believe will mark an essential step forward in the field." Jacques Derrida

"Staten has plenty of philosophical acuity and critical sensitivity as well as wide philosophical scholarship, and he writes in a clear,...

This book presents an innovative format for poetry criticism that its authors call "dialogical poetics." This approach shows that readings of poems, which in academic literary criticism often look like a product of settled knowledge, are in reality a continual negotiation between readers. But Derek Attridge and Henry Staten agree to rein in their own interpretive ingenuity and "minimally interpret" poems - reading them with careful regard for what the poem can be shown to actually say, in detail and as a whole, from opening to closure. Based on a series of emails, the book explores a...