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