Assuming the voices of psychoanalyst, scholar, and postmodern polemicist, Julia Kristeva discusses both the conflicts and commonalities among the Greek, Christian, Roman, and contemporary discourses on love, desire, and self. Her analysis deals with the role of narcissism and idealization in the formation of a love object. She accounts for the role of the death drive by coining the term "love/hate."

Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII. A renowned psychoanalyst, philosopher, and linguist, she has written dozens of books spanning semiotics, political theory, literary criticism, gender and sex, and cultural critique, as well as several novels and autobiographical works, published in English translation by Columbia University Press. Kristeva was the inaugural recipient of the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2004 "for innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture, and literature."

Leon S. Roudiez (1917-2004) was professor emeritus and former head of the French Department at Columbia University.