French Literature Reviews - 2026

Stendhal, De l'amour (GF)
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

Bibliographic reference: Stendhal, De l'amour (GF), Flammarion, "GF" series, 2014. EAN13: 9782080712394.

Stendhal, De l'amour

Introduction, notes, appendices, chronology, and bibliography by Xavier Bourdenet

Paris, Flammarion, coll. "GF", 2014

578 p. - €9.90

Publisher's overview:

"This book," Stendhal wrote to a friend, "is a monograph on the malady known as Love. It is a treatise on moral medicine." This malady was Stendhal's lifelong favorite delight. To define it, understand it, identify its symptoms, analyze its triggering phenomena—including the famous process of crystallization—and restate its paradoxical pleasures is the very purpose of this "ideological book." Born from a personal drama, it is at once the sum of Henri Beyle's experiences as a rejected lover of the cold Mathilde, and, through the numerous anecdotes and short Italian tales scattered throughout, a prefiguration of his future novels.

A fetishistic, lush, and subtle work, De l'amour (1822) outlines the Map of Tenderness according to Stendhal.

Stendhal's 1822 treatise approaches affection as a subject of psychological inquiry and moral study, reflecting the author's lifelong fascination with the topic. Born from personal experience following rejection, the work combines analytical observation with personal anecdote and short Italian tales. Readers interested in classic French texts may find it relevant.

The volume includes supplementary critical material such as an introduction, notes, appendices, a chronology, and a bibliography prepared by Xavier Bourdenet. Through these editorial elements, the text situates the De l'amour within the broader context of nineteenth-century French literature and the author's personal history, providing readers with historical and biographical background to better appreciate Stendhal's ideological approach to human emotion.