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Feder emphasizes how little we have studied affects and their relation to music. He cites three advantages in studying this relationship: (1) we can gain data that furthers our understanding of creativity; (2) we can learn more about the nature of representation in the auditory sphere, namely auditory symbolization; and (3) music can further our understanding of affect. He devotes considerable time to the study of literature, giving many examples which focus on nostalgia. He quotes Kleiner in 1970 as having stated that "the essence of nostalgia [is] a 'wish to return to an idealized past'." Feder's main thesis traces nostalgia back to a yearning for the preoedipal mother, but he also emphasizes oedipal aspects. He separates homesickness, sentimentality, and depression from the affect nostalgia, but simultaneously demonstrates an overlapping of all of these affects. In Feder's study of Ives's musical piece, "The Things Our Fathers Loved," he ingeniously dissects, analyzes, and demonstrates the affect of nostalgia. He concludes with the generalization that any artistic medium may accomplish the same result in regard to other affects.