"All the tales presented by Maurizio Bettini in this study concern lovers' separations, with a twist: one of the lonely partners retains an image - a statue, a portrait - of the other, and this image becomes the focus of the resulting story about separation and loneliness. The book chronicles the adventures of these sorrowful lovers and the images they possess; the basic story is deeply emotional but with many eccentric and extravagant variations."--BOOK JACKET.

"Maurizio Bettini brings to the discussion of these tales a career of scrupulous thinking about human relationships and communication, along with a delighted sense of wonder at the variety and evocative power of stories. His analyses are informed by semiotics and other modern critical approaches, but the engine that runs them is relish and alacrity for the marvelous things that happen when cultural models take shape in the form of a plot."--BOOK JACKET.