Love

amour

Worked through in 8 videos · 13 passages.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani first approaches love through Wagner's Ring, from which he draws out its law: only one who renounces love can seize the gold, which makes Eros and power two terms that exclude each other1. Wotan's monologue takes up this alternative again2. According to him, love overwhelms us because it resembles freedom more than anything else3. He treats it as a historical reality: the mad love of Tristan and Isolde is modern and appears only with Christianity4, and the love of a young couple presupposes millennia of evolution5. He argues that lovers do not seek to possess bodies: it is the subjects who seek each other through them. He adds that in Plato love is anything but platonic, since "I love your mouth" looks for a soul behind the body6. He also notes that love remains associated with a fault because of its physical side. Regarding Proust, he reads the little phrase as saying that love is nothing because it is worth more than reality.

Summary produced automatically from 13 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Series · 6 Jul 2026From Plato to Proust

37:54In Plato, love is anything but platonic: the statement "I love your mouth" calls for a response and seeks a soul behind the body.

Series · 13 Jun 2025Our former savagery? An Illumination by Arthur Rimbaud

19:57Because of its physical side, love is always linked to a fault; the organic is looked upon unfavorably.
32:39The love lived by a young couple presupposes millennia of evolution; it differs from that of Cro-Magnon man.

Cycle 13 · 17 Dec 2024The essence of evil: innocence of nature, horror of naturalism!

47:36The mad love of Tristan and Iseult is modern and comes only with Christianity.
53:14Lovers do not want to possess bodies: it is souls, subjects, that seek each other through bodies.

Cycle 11 · 12 Dec 2022Hesitation fascinated by hearing and by sight: Siegfried and Perceval

9:52When war ceases, the court makes love its subject; problems become interiorized up to the divine love of the Grail.

Series · 3 Aug 2022Schubert: the divine captives

3:57One always begins to love a little too late; Swann's Way tells of a love among others, not the great love.
10:18The little phrase says that love is nothing, not because it is worth less than reality, but because it is worth more.

Series · 6 Feb 2022The feminism of the privileged, puritanical censorship of femininity: Molière, Clouscard, Wagner

27:06Elsa prefers to annihilate herself if she cannot fully grasp the one she loves; through her jealousy, she moves from adoration to the fullness of love.

Cycle 9.2 · 18 Feb 2021#9.15 How can sciences of history be real?

13:35The algebra that governs the whole Ring: only he who renounces love can seize the gold; there is a gain and a loss.
46:10Wotan's monologue restates the dichotomy: Eros or power.

Cycle 9.2 · 29 Jan 2021#9.13 How can sciences of history be real?

48:07Gold and love exclude each other; those who want both come to a bad end: this is already the curse of the ring.
1:04:07Love overwhelms us because it resembles, like nothing else in the universe, what is most important, freedom.