The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism

This is a beautiful and poetic essay about love and eros throughout the world and through the centuries.
Paz presents his rich material as a philosopher, a poet, a historian, an interpreter and a critic. One of his important statements is that Eros and love are not threatened by the Church, but by promiscuity.
There are great truths in this book and an invitation for the reader to learn about the world, the other and himself/herself.

Paz presents in this work wonderful insights about love and eros in modern life. From the antiquity to the modern period, he studies the themes from the literary and philosophical aspects.
He takes up Plato's discussion about the love of beauty, India's Kama Sutra, the role of the Troubadours in Provence, the courtly Love, the medieval Love, Dante, Freud's modern psychology, etc.
Paz emphasizes that love and eros are spiritual and give meaning to our lives and civilizations.
The writing is very enjoyable, thought-provoking and wise.

Fundamental, authoritative, thoughtful and insightful, with a truly scholarly study of the history and literature of Love and Eroticism (attraction, desire). rendered delightfully accessible by a master writer, poet, and student of Love. Octavio Paz's work continues to prove his genius and well-deserved respect and multi-facted successes.

A powerful tale of life, love , perplexing yet unifying emotions in beings from different times and different cultures. Masterful. A must read.

I read this book slowly, underlining passages, re-reading certain passages to fully absorb the text. Paz is a passionate poet/thinker and his passionate prose is translated well into English by Helen Lane. He knows what he loves and his ability to both entertain and edify is outstanding.

Like most surveys of Western Culture/History, he begins in Greece and traverses the centuries by exploring the trends, ideas and influences that resonate with love and eros from throughout the world. Plato's discussion on the love of beauty is here as is India's Kama Sutra and so forth. He discusses the role of the Troubadours in Provence, Courtly Love, Medieval Love, Dante, all the way up to the modern psychology of Freud and beyond.

He is both a historian and interpreter, a critic and a specialist. In discussing our modern understanding of love, he too comments on 'eros' being prostituted by the mass market world we live in. Pornography is put under the mental microscope as is the abuse of sexual images used in advertising. The greatest present threat to eros and love is not the Church, Paz claims but promiscuity itself, turning 'love into a pastime, and money'. I am in complete agreement. The sacred, which was once so much a part of eros has been slackened and taken away. There is great truth in this book and beauty and a call to everyone to strive towards learning, not only about the world but about one's self.

Paz reminds the reader of how greatly cultured our world is, how we are indebted to the minds of past artists and thinkers, how love and eros have benefited from mythology and the cultivation of narration and poetry. It is up to us to make sure we don't take for granted this great bounty of works and ideas.