Memory and desire

"This is the first book to explore the fascinating theme of passion and sexual obsession in the novella (or short novel). Many famous novellas by English, French, German and Russian writers of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries are concerned with this theme, and several have become the basis for famous operas, including Werther, Manon Lescaut, La Traviata and Death in Venice." "Through the themes of memory and desire, Peter Mudford illustrates the different ways in which twelve of these works represent passion, and the appropriateness of the theme for the novella form - the prose equivalent of a lyric poem. In creativity, as in passion, desire becomes an exclusive obsession which for the artist, as for the lover, has to be burned through: these novellas, in their brevity, reflect this intensity of focus."--BOOK JACKET.