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Love
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{{Top}}[[amour]]{{Bottom}} ==Jacques Lacan=====Symbolic===[[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> ===Imaginary===[[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]]. --> ===Love and Desire===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: ====Opposition====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> ====Similarity====On the other hand, there are elements in [[Lacan]]'s [[work]] which destabilize the neat opposition between [[love]] and [[desire]]. # Firstly, they are both similar in that neither can ever be [[satisfied]].# Secondly, the [[structure]] of [[love]] as "the wish to be loved" is identical to the [[structure]] of [[desire]], in which the [[subject]] [[desire]]s to become the [[object]] of the [[Other]]'s [[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===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]]. ==See Also=={{See}}* [[Analysand]]* [[Analyst]]* [[Demand]]||* [[Desire]]* [[Dialectic]]* [[Discourse]]||* [[Lack]]* [[Lure]]* [[Metaphor]]||* [[Metonymy]]* [[Need]]* [[Signification]]||* [[Speech]]* [[Structure]]* [[Treatment]]{{Also}} ==References==<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"><references/></div>{{OK}}[[Category:Imaginary]]__NOTOC__
