The Four Loves (C.S. Lewis)

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis discusses what he considers the four categories or types of love:

• affection (think "mother for child")
• friendship (those of similar beliefs or interests)
• eros (think "lovers")
• charity (God's love for us)

He also talks about concepts like 'need-love' (I love it/them because it's required for my well-being) and 'gift-love' (I bestow favor and provide for another because I love them).  He discusses not only what the loves look like but the dangers of putting them above their station, "For natural loves that are allowed to become gods to not remain loves.  They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred."

I like Lewis- I've read many books by him.  I was drawn to this in particular because I believe "love" is a word we all use but mean different things by it.  I was hoping, therefore, that he would define it (or the different types of it) clearly.  He doesn't.  He discusses characteristics of each but doesn't succinctly define any.  This work, like his others, is in turn both wonderfully profound and difficult to follow.  I don't always get his train of thought, or follow his literary references (he assumes a degree of classical education in his audience that I simply don't have).  While thought-provoking and interesting, this didn't quite "scratch the itch."  It reminded me more of a wise man's stream-of-consciousness or conversational musings on a topic.  Since Lewis does have a good deal of wisdom, though, I'll end with some quotes I especially appreciated:

. . . we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.

Better this than parting.

For the Church has no beauty but what the Bridge-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely.

But the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift . . . Gift-love "must work towards its own abdication."

If you take nature as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you ahd already decided to learn; this is only another way of saying that nature does not teach.

Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God.

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize.

Rating: B-