Amour-passion#
Summary#
Nietzsche employs the French term amour-passion to describe passionate romantic love as a cultural-historical phenomenon rather than a natural given. He argues paradoxically that it was precisely during the most Christian period of European history, under the pressure of Christian sentiments, that the sexual impulse became sublimated into this form of love. This sublimation represents for Nietzsche an instance of how periods of moral fanaticism and restraint can purify and sharpen certain impulses rather than simply suppress them.