Febris Erotica

"One of the book's key strengths, its full-blooded engagement with the scientific contexts that inform the (mostly) novels at hand, shows Sobol to be of the best sort of humanities scholar, not fighting shy of the 'extraneous' intellectual matter that underpins creative praxis."—B.D. Morgan, Slavonic and East European Review, October 2011

"In this excellent study, Valeria Sobol explains its [lovesickness] central importance first in the west (starting with ancient Greek culture), and then in different Russian literary movements from its entrance into Russia in the Petrine period….The book alternates between close textual analysis and literary history so as to situate each text and author within a mostly vanished past."—Slavic Review

"In this book, Valeria Sobol takes a well known fact—that 'lovesickness' plays a significant role in the Russian literary imagination— and makes it the nexus of a fertile study with stunning depth and breadth. . . . The book is so rich and full of information, and written in such clear and masterful prose. . . come away with understanding Russian literary culture in new and profound ways."—The Russian Review

"Throughout the book is well grounded in both Greek and early modern philosophy and in relevant psychological and medical theories of the 19th century."—Choice

"Deftly weaving together literary, intellectual, cultural, and medical history, Sobol makes a convincing case that the 'lovesickness' topos is an important and exceptionally productive prism for exploring a whole constellation of thorny issues and debates that were played out in fascinating detail in Russian literature and culture from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century."—Thomas Newlin, Oberlin College