Affection is what is felt for pets, by pet owners, and for acquaintances for whom one has some fondness.

It does not require attraction or mutual points of view. Affection is described by Lewis as being rooted in warmth and familiarity. For instance, a breeze can be appreciated on a hot day, but the breeze itself has no inherent good in it.Īfter clarifying his semantic position, Lewis begins by examining the love known as Affection, or storge (31) in the original Greek. “Appreciative” love is a function of the lover’s admiration for a feeling of aesthetic or physical qualities. It is manifested in a gift that is freely given, with no expectation of return. A Gift-love is independent and free of the expectation of reciprocity. However, Need-loves are exhausted once the need has been satisfied. It loves her because it needs her, and the need depends on the love. A Need-love is compared to an infant needing its mother. The talks received widespread criticism in conservative circles for what was, at the time, a frank discussion of sex and its implications.īefore beginning the discussion of the “loves” themselves, Lewis defines his terms and makes some distinctions between what are typically called “likes” versus “loves.” Clarity of language is paramount in The Four Loves, and the first categories are “Need-loves,” “Gift-loves,” and loves of “appreciation” (2).

The piquant English translations of many of these are Lewis's own work.The Four Loves is derived from a 1958 series of radio broadcasts by Lewis. The book is ornamented with quotations from poems in many languages, including Classical and Medieval Latin, Middle English, and Old French. The focus, however, is on English works: the poems of Chaucer, Gower's Confessio Amantis and Usk's Testament of Love, the works of Chaucer's epigones, and Spenser's Faerie Queene. The remaining chapters, drawing on the points made in the first two, examine the use of allegory and personification in the depiction of love in a selection of poetic works, beginning with the Roman de la Rose. In the second chapter, Lewis discusses the medieval evolution of the allegorical tradition in such writers as Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille. It is here that he sets forth a famous characterization of 'the peculiar form which it first took the four marks of Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love'-the last two of which 'marks' have, in particular, been the subject of a good deal of controversy among later scholars.

In the first chapter, Lewis traces the development of the idea of courtly love from the Provençal troubadours to its full development in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. Lewis ( ISBN 0192812203), is an exploration of the allegorical treatment of love in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which was published on. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition ( 1936), by C.

Love cs lewis