Bitter and sweet Eros

Since its publication, this lyrical meditation on love in the literature and philosophy of Ancient Greece has been received with unprecedented enthusiasm by an unusually broad audience, including classicists, essayists, poets, and readers in general.

Drawing on the poet Sappho's coinage of the word "bittersweet" to describe love, this original book, written in dazzling prose, offers a comprehensive reflection on the conflicting nature of romantic love, which is at once "depressing" and "one of our greatest pleasures".