The Four Loves examines affection, friendship, eros, and charity.
C.S. Lewis’s book The Four Loves was published in 1960. It grew from a series of BBC radio broadcasts and considers four Greek terms used to describe different forms of love: storge, philia, eros, and agape. Lewis uses English discussions of affection, friendship, romantic love, and charitable or divine love to explain the distinctions.
The book does not claim that these categories are isolated in every relationship. Instead, Lewis explores how they can overlap, support one another, or become distorted when treated as ultimate goods. His discussion combines literary examples, philosophical reflection, and Christian theology.
The work is sometimes confused with The Weight of Glory, another collection of Lewis’s Christian essays. It is also distinct from A Grief Observed, which focuses on bereavement. The Four Loves is especially useful for readers who want Lewis’s treatment of human relationships outside the fictional worlds of Narnia and his science-fiction novels.