What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s book about four kinds of human love?
Answer
The Four Loves
C.S. Lewis’s book about four kinds of human love is The Four Loves.
Published in 1960, the book grew from a series of BBC radio talks. Lewis considers four Greek terms commonly used to distinguish forms of love: affection, friendship, erotic love, and self-giving love. In the English text, these are represented by storge, philia, eros, and agape.
Lewis does not simply rank ordinary affection below spiritual love. Instead, he explores both the strengths and dangers of each kind. Friendship, for example, is treated as a distinctive bond rather than merely a weaker form of romance. The book is therefore both a theological reflection and an accessible work of cultural commentary.
The title is sometimes confused with The Allegory of Love, Lewis’s academic study of medieval literature. The Four Loves is much later and is written for a general audience rather than primarily for literary scholars.