The Tears of Eros

by Georges Bataille

Book Overview

Tears of Eros is the culmination of Georges Bataille's inquiries into the relationship between violence and the sacred. Taking up such figures as Giles de Rais, Erzebet Bathory, the Marquis de Sade, El Greco, Gustave Moreau, Andre Breton, Voodoo practitioners, and Chinese torture victims, Bataille reveals their common obsession: death.

This essay, illustrated with artwork from every era, was developed out of ideas explored in Erotism:...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872862224
• ISBN13: 9780872862227
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 213 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An exploration of value through excessive experience

The Tears of Eros is a fitting culmination of Bataille's search for value through excess. Although Bataille addresses many of the themes touched on here in greater detail in earlier works (Eroticism, The Accursed Share), The Tears of Eros is notable for the significant amount of artwork included to illustrate the connection Bataille develops between sex, death, expenditure, and sovereign value. This is a "must-read" for any serious student of contemporary philosophy and--for that matter--any who would insist that value resides elsewhere than in a petty, bourgeois individualism.

Extraordinary treatment of sex and death, emotions and words

It is from woman, we come and to woman, we return because we all have both aspects in our being...female and maleness