Back to Blog
Love by stendhal6/3/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Having 'given herself' as 'proof' of love to him, she finds that his final step is her first one into the state of the cruellest doubt (did he just use me?). This moment marks, of course, precisely when a negative crystallization begins - for her. That is when the beloved, loaded with all the imaginary perfections with which he can endow her, grants him sexual access, le don de merci in courtly terms. In the formula for crystallization, Stendhal counts five steps to the completeness of it, the fifth culminating in 'proof of love'. An argument, however, can be made that "Stendhal's crystallization has mainly been read from the masculine subject position, however sympathetically. This first crystallization is most often reinforced by a second one" (Schehr). In De l'Amour, known in English as On Love, Stendhal shared his concept of "crystallization" as "the process whereby the lover discovers new perfections in the beloved. First Kieffer edition, in a striking Kieffer binding, number 50 of 50 copies on japon, from an edition limited to 1,050 copies only, of this art deco edition of Stendhal's great study of love, which was originally published in 1822. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |