Every conception of love translates a certain idea of ​​man and the meaning of life. Therefore, striving to understand the relationships between Spirit and Eros is equivalent to questioning the various notions of the self in the great cultural traditions.

If, as the East teaches, the self is only an illusion, how is it possible to love the other for oneself? If, as the Gospel indicates, one must love one's neighbor "as oneself," does this not presuppose a radical difference between the natural self and the "true self" of a spiritual nature? And this, is it confused perhaps with the divine I of the oriental tradition?

As an extension of his famous essay Love and the West, Denis de Rougemont seeks in this book the answer to these crucial questions. To do this, he follows an original path that involves a «mythoanalysis» of the figures of Don Juan and Tristán, passing through the writings of some first-rate thinkers (Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, André Gide ...) and through a new study of the characters of the great contemporary love novels.

The myth of love is, in short, a fascinating essay that goes through the stages of a risky search in the depths of the human soul.