CHAPTER VIII
THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT IN LOVE—THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF LOVE
“Above all, we must avoid the widely diffused error of regarding love as a simple and single feeling. The exact opposite is the truth—love consists of an entire group, and, indeed, of an extremely complex, incessantly varying, group of feelings.”—H. T. Finck.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VIII
The individualization of love a product of recent times — Finck’s “romantic” love too narrow a conception — Rôle of the idealization of the senses — First beginnings of individual love — The Platonism of the Greeks and of the Renascence — Distinction between the plastic and the romantic — The love of the minnesinger — The connexion between the nature-sense and love — The secret elements in love — Love and gallantry — The slavery of love — The imaginative element in love — Predominance of tender feelings in the days of chivalry — The development of the conventional in the relationships of love — True and false gallantry — Love as presented by Shakespeare — Conventional life of pleasure in the days of Louis XIV. and XV. — The belief in woman (“Manon Lescaut”) — Rousseau’s “Julie” and Goethe’s “Werther” — The nature-sense and sentimentality in love — Difference between “The New Héloïse” and “Werther” — The first beginnings of Weltschmerz — Its physiological connexion with the vital feelings of puberty — The vital energy in the Weltschmerz of Goethe and Heine — The modern Weltschmerz — Nietzsche’s connexion with this matter — The love of the romantic period — A mirroring of the past — Dreams and emotions — Moonshine reverie — Conflict with conventional Philistine morality — Friedrich Schlegel’s “Lucinde” — Apotheosis of individual love — Individual love in relation to genius — Rôle of the emotional in romantic love — Love mysticism — The modern renascence of romanticism — The Dionysiac element in modern romantic love — Difference between romantic and classical love — Theodor Mundt on this subject — Goethe’s “Tasso” — Gretchen and Helena in “Faust” — Heine’s “Ardinghello,” a combination of romantic and classical love — The prototype of “young Germany” — Discussion of all modern love problems in young German literature — Gutzkow’s overwhelming importance — Among writers of the nineteenth century, Gutzkow’s knowledge of women is the most profound — His characteristic girls and women — Brings for the first time the problem of love upon the stage — The problem of personality in Gutzkow’s writings — The young German poetry of the flesh — Self-analysis and reflection in love — French precursors — Replacement of the medieval “sin” by self-reflection — Gutzkow’s “Wally” and “Seraphine” — The love of the emancipated woman — Kierkegaard’s and Grillparzer’s diaries — “Free love” and “free marriage” in modern literature — Influence of the Second Empire — The satanic and artistic elements in love — Pessimism. — Grisebach’s “New Tanhäuser” — The affirmation of life in this work — A glance at the present day.
CHAPTER VIII
The individualization of love is principally a product of recent times. A talented author, H. T. Finck, has dealt with this fact in a comprehensive work in two volumes.[134] This individual love, containing the spiritual elements of all the successive epochs of civilization, he denotes by the term “romantic” love, whereas we ourselves generally understand by that term a special variety of the more comprehensive individual love.
Every one who is interested in the numerous “overtones” of individual love will find in Finck’s book a rich, though not very well arranged, supply of material.