On Love
by Stendhal · De l'amour
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1822
- Form
- Essay
- Language
- French
- Length
- Medium · 300 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendLove, translated by Gilbert Sale and Suzanne SalePenguin Classics, 1975The standard English text, with Jean Stewart and B. C. J. G. Knight's introduction.
These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.
An analytical essay on love written after Stendhal's unrequited passion for Matilde Dembowski in Milan. He distinguishes passionate love, mannered love, physical love and vanity love, and describes the seven stages by which a person falls in love, the second of which he names crystallisation, the process by which the mind covers the beloved with perfections as a bare branch left in a salt mine comes out covered with crystals. Later chapters compare love in different countries, discuss the education of women and collect anecdotes and maxims.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns On Love are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
