Crying: A Natural and Cultural History of Tears
by Tom Lutz
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Description
"Crying looks at the way people have understood weeping from the earliest known representation of tears in the fourteenth century B.C. through tears found in today's films, advertisements, and therapies. Philosophers from Plato and Aristotle through Descartes, William James, and Sartre have attempted to explain tears, as have physiologists from Hippocrates through Darwin and contemporary neurophysiologists and ophthalmologists. Psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists all have their show more theories. In addition to consolidating these theories, Tom Lutz also examines paintings from medieval times through Picasso, literary texts from Homer and Shakespeare through the sentimental writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present, and films from the "weepies" of the 1930s through Titanic to unearth the multifaceted meanings of tears. Despite our most common romantic assumptions, this brilliant book tells us that tears are never pure, and that they are never simple."--Jacket show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I picked up this book from the library, and approached it with a lot of hope. However, while I enjoyed the many examples of tears that have littered the books of history, there was not too much about the book that really gave me deep insight into this phenomenon. What it did bring up, and make very clear, is that we do not have too much insight into this fundamental activity of us humans. However, while we have written about many human emotions, we have not done the same for tears.
Tom Lutz has indeed done us a service by writing this book. I don't envy him the task that he set for himself. This is a very difficult subject to write about
Tom Lutz has indeed done us a service by writing this book. I don't envy him the task that he set for himself. This is a very difficult subject to write about
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Author Information
40+ Works 582 Members
Tom Lutz is the founding editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Review of Books and Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California at Riverside. His many books include Born Slippy: A Novel (2020) and Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums (2008), which won the American Book Award.
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Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Crying.The natural andcultural history of tears
- Original publication date
- 1999
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 167
- Popularity
- 196,212
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.45)
- Languages
- Dutch, English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
