Intro -- WeltLiteraturen World Literatures -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Table of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Love After Death. A Sketch -- Chelsea, 1532: A heavenly ménage à trois -- Thérouanne, around 1300: Erotic reunion in heaven -- Orvieto, 1500: Luca Signorelli's blissful couples -- Paris, 1578: Ronsard's advice for Hélène -- The holy texts: "As the angels of God in heaven" -- Widows and widowers: "Till death us depart" -- The chapters -- Some Ancient Posthumous Lovers -- Posthumous Love as Culture. - Outline of a Medieval Moral Pattern -- Macro Perspectives -- Till Death Do Us Part: The Modern Formula -- Posthumous Indifference: The Ancient Mediterranean -- Posthumous Love: The Latin West -- Cultural Figurations -- Lifelong Presence-Desire and Representation "until death take me . . ." -- Eternal Absence-A Mansio Amoena, Crowds of Women, a DifferentHusband -- "Her Arse on the Ground"-The Dilemma Redefined -- The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks -- Posthumous Love in Judaism -- "That You Be Brought Near." - Union beyond the Grave in the Arabic Literary Tradition -- Death as a Key Element -- Is There Love after Death? -- Reticence in the Depiction of the Afterlife -- Appendix: Translations -- 1. [Lovers Renounce the World] -- 2. [A Common Burial] -- 3. [A Caliph Follows His Slave-Girl into Death] -- 4. [A Portrait Brings Death] -- 5. [A Call to Die] -- 6. [A Young Widow Grieves Herself to Death] -- 7. [A Slave-Girl Follows a General into Death] -- 8. [A Fragrance Brings Death] -- 9. [One Arrow Kills Two Lovers] -- 10. [Two Musicians Drown Themselves] -- 11. [A Tomb Speaks] -- 12. [Adultery of a Queen] -- 13. [An Aristocrat Follows His Slave-Girl into Death] -- 14. [Opposite Conversions] -- 15. [A Christian Girl's Conversion] -- Eros and Eschatology. - Phantasms of Postmortal Love in Petrarch.

Love after Death in Garcilaso de la Vega -- I. -- II. -- III. -- Burying Romeo and Juliet: Love after Death in the English Renaissance -- I. -- II. -- III. -- Notes on Contributors -- Index of names.

This book explores one of the central questions that has haunted husbands and wives and lovers over the millennia of history: What kind of afterlife might they expect for their love once one or both of them have died? Focusing on the evolution of ideas about posthumous love within medieval and early modern Europe, the book includes many religions and cultures in order to understand how expectations about the afterlife differed across traditions.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.