ABSTRACT
What first strikes one in Rousseau's attitude towards love is the separation, even wider here perhaps than elsewhere, between the ideal and the real. He dilates in the "Confessions" on the difference of the attachment that he felt when scarcely more than a boy for two young women of Geneva, Mademoiselle Vulson and Mademoiselle Goton. The man of the Middle Ages, however extravagant in his imaginings, was often no doubt terrestrial enough in his practice. The pursuit of a phantom of love through various earthly forms led in the course of the romantic movement to certain modifications in a famous legend – that of Don Juan. The romantic lover who identifies the ideal with the superlative thrill is turning the ideal into something very transitory. A curious extension of the art of impassioned recollection should receive at least passing mention. It has been so extended as to lead to what one may term an unethical use of literature and history.
