On ‘Love at First Sight’

Abstract

The expression ‘love at first sight’ (henceforth ‘LAFS’ — with quotation marks) is quite common in the English language, in both literary and colloquial use. It has direct equivalents in other European languages, for example, in the German expression ‘Liebe auf den ersten Blick’ and, less directly, in the French expression ‘coup de foudre.’ It belongs to a cluster of expressions that are typically thought to concern the early stages of romantic love. Expressions like ‘falling in love’ (‘tomber amoureux’ in French, ‘sich verlieben’ in German), ‘infatuation,’ ‘amour fou,’ ‘mad love,’ and so on give further evidence of the rather rich vocabulary we use to speak about phenomena associated with the emergence of romantic love, whether the engendered processes result in a profound, reciprocal, and stable loving relationship or not. I take it that the expression ‘LAFS’ refers to some phenomenon, which is the main topic of this chapter. I shall refer to it as LAFS — without quotation marks.