Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgements ix
4. Preface x
5. 1. Love plays God 1
6. 2. The foundation of Western love: Hebrew Scripture 14
7. 3. From physical desire to paradise: Plato 38
8. 4. Love as perfect friendship: Aristotle 56
9. 5. Love as sexual desire: Lucretius and Ovid 69
10. 6. Love as the supreme virtue: Christianity 81
11. 7. Why Christian love isn’t unconditional 95
12. 8. Women as ideals love and the troubadours 119
13. 10. Love as joyful understanding of the whole: Spinoza 143
14. 11. Love as Enlightened Romanticism: Rousseau 152
15. 12. Love as religion: Schlegel and Novalis 165
16. 13. Love as the urge to procreate: Schopenhauer 176
17. 14. Love as affirmation of life: Nietzsche 188
18. 15. Love as a history of loss: Freud 199
19. 16. Love as terror and tedium: Proust 215
20. 17. Love reconsidered 235
21. Notes 257
22. Bibliography 279
23. Index 285