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[[Lacan]] argues that it is [[impossible]] to [[speech|say]] anything [[meaning]]ful or [[meaning|sensible]] [[about ]] [[love]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 57</ref> Indeed, the [[moment ]] one starts to [[speech|speak]] about [[love]], one descends into imbecility.<ref>{{S20}} p. 17</ref> Given these views, it might seem surprising that [[Lacan]] himself dedicates a great deal of his [[seminar]] precisely to [[speech|speaking]] about [[love]]. However, in doing so, [[Lacan]] is merely demonstrating what the [[analysand]] does in [[psychoanalytic treatment]], for "the only [[thing ]] that we do in the [[analytic discourse]] is [[speech|speak]] about [[love]]."<ref>{{S20}} p. 77</ref>

[[Love]] is located by [[Lacan]] as a purely [[imaginary]] phenomenon, although it has effects in the [[symbolic]] [[order]].<ref>(one of those effects [[being ]] to produce "a veritable subduction of [[the symbolic]]") {{S1}} p. 142</ref> [[Love]] is [[autoeroticism|autoerotic]], and has a fundamentally [[narcissism|narcissistic]] [[structure]] since "it's one's own ego that one loves in love, one's own ego made [[real ]] on [[the imaginary ]] level."<ref>{{S1}} p. 142</ref> The [[imaginary]] [[nature ]] of [[love]] leads [[Lacan]] to oppose all those [[analyst]]s who posit [[love]] as an [[ideal ]] in [[psychoanalytic treatment]].<ref>{{S7}} p. 8</ref>

[[Love]] involves an [[imaginary]] reciprocity, since "to love is, essentially, to [[wish ]] to be loved."<ref>{{S11}} p. 253</ref> It is this reciprocity between "loving" and "being loved" that constitutes the [[illusion ]] of [[love]], and this is what distinguishes it from the [[order]] of the [[drive]]s, in which there is no reciprocity, only pure [[activity]].<ref>{{S11}} p. 200</ref> [[Love]] is an [[illusory ]] [[fantasy]] of fusion with the [[beloved ]] which makes up for the [[absence]] of any [[sexual relationship]].<ref>{{S20}} p. 44</ref> This is especially clear in the asexual [[concept ]] of [[courtly love]].<ref>{{S20}} p. 65</ref>

[[Love]] is [[truth|deceptive]]. "As a [[specular ]] mirage, love is essentially [[deception]]."<ref>{{S11}} p. 268</ref> It is [[lure|deceptive]] because it involves giving what one does not have (i.e. the [[phallus]]); to [[love]] is "to give what one does not have."<ref>{{S8}} p. 147</ref> [[Love]] is directed not at what the [[object|love-object]] has, but at what he [[lack]]s, at the [[nothing ]] beyond him. The [[object]] is valued insofar as it comes in the [[place ]] of that [[lack]].<!-- Lacan suggests that when one is in love one is really saying: "I am what is [[lacking ]] in you, with my devotion to you, with my sacrifice for you, I will fill you out, I will [[complete ]] you." The operation of love is therefore [[double]]: the [[subject]] fills in his own [[lack]] by offering himself to the [[other]] as the [[object]] filling out the [[lack]] in the [[Other]]. -->

One of the most [[complex ]] areas of [[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]] concerns the [[relationship ]] between [[love]] and [[desire]]. On the one hand, the two [[terms ]] are diametrically opposed. On the other hand, this opposition is problematized by certain similarities between the two:

As an [[imaginary]] phenomenon which belongs to the [[order|field]] of the [[ego]], [[love]] is clearly opposed to [[desire]], which is inscribed in the [[symbolic]] [[order]], the [[order|field]] of the [[Other]].<ref>{{S11}} pp. 189-91</ref> [[Love]] is a [[metaphor]], whereas [[desire]] is [[metonymy]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 53</ref> It can even be said that [[love]] kills [[desire]], since [[love]] is based on a [[fantasy]] of oneness with the beloved and this abolishes the [[difference ]] which gives rise to [[desire]].<ref>{{S20}} p. 46</ref>

On the other hand, there are elements in [[Lacan]]'s [[work ]] which destabilize the neat opposition between [[love]] and [[desire]].

# Thirdly, in the [[dialectic]] of [[need]]/[[demand]]/[[desire]], [[desire]] is [[born ]] precisely from the [[unsatisfied ]] part of [[demand]], which is the [[demand]] for [[love]].

[[Lacan]]'s own [[discourse]] on [[love]] is thus often complicated by the same [[substitution ]] of "[[desire]]" for "[[love]]" which he himself highlights in the [[text ]] of [[Plato]]'s ''[[Plato|Symposium]]''.<ref>{{S8}} p. 141</ref>

Courtly love "is an altogether refined way of making up for the absence of [[sexual ]] relation by pretending that it is we who put an obstacle to it." Courtly love is a love of the impossible, a love for the obstacle which forever thwarts love - an elegant way of coming to terms with the [[absence]] of [[sexual relationship|sexual relations]].