Love and Beauty

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Building on concepts from his earlier work, the author constructs a provocative theory of love, positing that the objects of love are qualities that embody beauty, with all love's pleasure being "erotic" yet not "sexual." This theory connects premodern and modern ideas of love and aesthetic pleasure, critiquing contemporary tendencies to culturally and psychologically isolate the aesthetic from its roots in the human body. The author begins by analyzing enjoyment, asserting that it ultimately derives from the "experience of qualities." He describes how we perceive these qualities as "circulating" within a unique "space" that encompasses our bodies and the external world, highlighting their interconnection. This analysis is then extended to all forms of love, establishing that the pleasure derived from love—whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic, personal or nonpersonal, sexual or nonsexual—stems from an experience akin to an "overall bodily caress." Originally published in 1989, this work is now part of the Princeton Legacy Library, which utilizes print-on-demand technology to reissue out-of-print books from Princeton University Press, preserving original texts in durable formats to enhance access to scholarly works.