"A clear and straightforward discussion of the ways in which literatures and their comparative study must depend upon the problematics of interpersonal and other relations...This study will prove as useful as it is wide-ranging, and indeed, comparative in the good sense."--Mary Ann Caws, Graduate School, City University of New York "Here is a comp "Locating fictions of relationship 'at the heart of both literary criticism and human affairs' and acknowlegeing his own 'distinctly humanistic' concerns, Weinstein writes in an urgent tone and eloquent voice, inflecting the theme of 'relationship' in every way: in its surrender to the erotic, its frenzied drive for control of the Other, in its ability to confer identity or eclipse difference. . . When he couples texts, he takes risks that bear brilliant fruit."