Monks and priests - male celibates - have for centuries described, expressed, and celebrated their love for God in the language of sex, most prolifically and characteristically in a thousand-year tradition of theological commentaries on the scriptural Song of Songs. As their allegory for the intimate love between God and man, they chose the most intense human model available - erotic love. After analyzing the tradition, its logic, and its imagery, Denys Turner provides translations of a dozen medieval commentaries never before available in English. From Gregory the Great in the sixth century to John of the Cross in the sixteenth, lovers of God speak in their own words across a thousand years a message as compelling today as it was in the Middle Ages.

Monks and priests - male celibates - have for centuries described, expressed, and celebrated their love for God in the language of sex, most prolifically and characteristically in a thousand-year tradition of theological commentaries on the scriptural Song of Songs. As their allegory for the intimate love between God and man, they chose the most intense human model available - erotic love. After analyzing the tradition, its logic, and its imagery, Denys Turner provides translations of a dozen medieval commentaries never before available in English. From Gregory the Great in the sixth century to John of the Cross in the sixteenth, lovers of God speak in their own words across a thousand years a message as compelling today as it was in the Middle Ages.

It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that "magic" is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today. Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent. In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing. Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.

Cupid and Psyche Apuleius - Cupid and Psyche is a story from the Latin novel Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century AD by Apuleius. It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche (Soul or Breath of Life) and Cupid (Desire), and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage.

This is a L.A.M.E. 1 (Love & Making Expert One) Family Oriented & Friendly Self Help Libido Zone for all ages. Since the beginning of this exercise, LAME1 has and does extrapolate and roam with the thoughts of a 'Jaded' 5th grade youth being introduced to the notion of sex.

The Eros and Psyche myth has, over the course of the twentieth century, received nearly as much attention from depth psychologists as has the Oedipus story. In their attempt to better understand this popular story, scholars have proposed various interpretations, which have generally followed eithether Freudian or Jungian theories about the nature of the psyche and its development. This elaborate work provides serious students of psychology, religion and mythology with a detailed account and analysis of what has been accomplished in the spychological interpretation of the Eros and Psyche myth to date. It emphasizes how psychological theory determines the direction of interpretation much more than does the literary context of the myth itself. It also examines the strengths and weaknesses of these psychological interpretations (five Freudian and six Jungian) of the Eros and Psyche myth in order to lay the groundwork for an interpretation which (1) avoids the rigidity of both Freudian and Jungian dogma and (2) restores the myth to its rightful literary and religious context — something which has been ignored by most psychological interpretations.

This is a L.A.M.E. 1 (Love & Making Expert One) Family Oriented & Friendly Self Help Libido Zone for all ages. Since the beginning of this exercise, LAME1 has and does extrapolate and roam with the thoughts of a 'Jaded' 5th grade youth being introduced to the notion of sex.

Traces the development of allegory in the European and American tradition from antiquity to the modern era.

This volume considers Caravaggio's revolutionary realism from a range of perspectives, presenting new avenues for research by a plurality of leading scholars. First, it advances our understanding of Caravaggio's relationship with the new science of observation championed by Galileo. Second, it examines afresh the theoretical nature and artistic means of Caravaggio's seemingly direct realism. Third, it extends the horizons of research on Caravaggio's complex intellectual and social milieu between high and low cultures. Genevieve Warwick is Senior Lecturer in the Art History department at the University of Glasgow.