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Summary
Summary
"My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill." "The heart has reason that reason cannot know." "The more I get to know President Putin, the more I get to see his heart and soul." The heart not only drives our physical life, but throughout human history it has also been viewed at the seat of our deepest emotions. It has figured hugely--if metaphorically--in nearly every aspect of human civilization and as the unending subject of literature, music, and art. Yet until now there has not been a study of this paramount icon of love. Ole Høystad ably fills this enormous gap with a fascinating investigation into this locus of grief, joy, and power. Firmly positioning the heart at the metaphorical and literal center of human culture and history, Høystad weaves history, myth, and science together into a compelling narrative. He combs through religions and philosophies from the beginning of civilization to explore such disparate historical points as the Aztec ritual of removing the still-beating heart from a living sacrificial victim and offering it to the gods; homosexuality and the heart in Greek antiquity; European attempts to employ alchemy in service of the mysteries of love; and the connections between the heart and wisdom in Sufism. Høystad charts how the heart has signified our essential desires, whether for love and passion in the medieval excesses of troubadour poetry and chivalric idealism, the body-soul dualism propounded by the Enlightenment, or even the modern notions of individualism expressed in the works of such thinkers as Nietzsche, Foucault, and Joseph Campbell.
A provocative examination of the deepest vaults of our souls and the efforts of the many lonely hunters who have tried to unlock its secrets, A History of Heart upends the clichés to reveal a symbol of our fundamental humanity whose beats can be felt in every aspect of our lives.
Author Notes
Ole M. Høystad is currently visiting professor of cultural studies and history at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, and is professor of cultural studies and literature at Telemark University College in Norway.
Reviews (1)
Choice Review
This work might better be titled "A Selective History of the European Heart," since Haystad (cultural studies, Telemark University College, Norway) intentionally excludes--ostensibly for the sake of brevity--all Asian literature and philosophy and virtually all American literature. The author traces the evolution of Western understanding of the metaphoric human heart, exploring representations from ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Islamic philosophy and literature, through the Middle Ages and into the contemporary milieu, drawing from sources as diverse as Aztec ritual, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Nietzsche, and the confessions of St. Augustine and Rousseau. Not as thorough or as objective as Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), this work more closely resembles Robert Graves's subjective yet intriguing The White Goddess (1948). As a work of comparative mythology, the present volume contains some worthwhile analysis and conjecture, but it is marred by digressions, omissions, and oversimplifications. The author lapses into a perplexing discussion of the modern heart transplant but overlooks the important work of Carl Jung in the foreshortened chapter on alchemy. Summing Up: Optional. Comprehensive collections supporting graduate work on Western literature and philosophy. C. E. O'Neill New Mexico State University at Carlsbad
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. 7 |
| Introduction | p. 9 |
| Part 1 The Heart in Different Cultures | |
| 1 The World of Gilgamesh | p. 19 |
| 2 Ancient Egypt | p. 24 |
| 3 The Complex Man of Antiquity | p. 33 |
| 4 The Heart in the Bible and in Christianity | p. 57 |
| 5 Islam's Culture of the Heart | p. 79 |
| 6 The Aztecs - Why So Heartless? | p. 95 |
| 7 Norse Anthropology | p. 101 |
| Part 2 The Battle for the Western Heart | |
| 8 The Emotional Turn in the High Middle Ages | p. 111 |
| 9 The New Subject | p. 151 |
| 10 Montaigne: Man is his Own Work | p. 157 |
| 11 From the Renaissance and Alchemy to the Romantic Era | p. 169 |
| 12 Shakespeare and the Heart of Darkness | p. 174 |
| 13 Rousseau - Philosopher of the Heart | p. 191 |
| 14 Herder and the Expressivist Turn | p. 200 |
| 15 Faustian Goethe | p. 204 |
| 16 The Disenchantment and Re-enchantment of the Heart | p. 212 |
| Coda: The Emotional Cycle | p. 230 |
| References | p. 239 |
| Bibliography | p. 243 |
| Photo Acknowledgements | p. 249 |
| Index | p. 251 |