The dark side of loveIn Faust (first part) by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe as well as in Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, love plays an essential role. Love is the reason why an individual deviates from the path of enlightenment and begins to act strange and unpredictable. This diminishes an individual's ability to reason and removes any incentive to seek enlightenment. Since love is based on faith, it goes against the ideals of enlightenment which emphasize individual thought. Love causes a feeling of fulfillment, which also goes against the ideals of enlightenment which advocate a constant struggle within the individual to find the truth or reach a higher level of thinking. In the Age of Enlightenment, love is a temptation that man must overcome to achieve enlightenment. Looking at Faust, we can make an analogy between love and an illness. If a person has vulnerabilities, love can exploit them and manifest itself in that person. When Faust kisses Gretchen's hand, she says, "How can you kiss my hand?" / It’s so ugly and so hard! / There are so many things I have to scrub and scrub and sand” (139). This shows us that Gretchen has very low self-esteem. Faust's kissing his crude hands reminds him of his own poverty. Faust notices this and takes advantage, striking up a conversation with her and dropping subtle hints of his interest in her – “She was an angel, if she were like you” (140). Gretchen is confused as to what Faust sees in her and says that Faust must be bold to think that "such a light girl would give him everything he wanted" (142). She can't understand that her body gives her what her lack of sophistication doesn't. She is taken by the fact that Faust is vastly superior in terms of social status. This is evident in his... middle of paper...... which hinders one of the most important elements necessary to achieve enlightenment: Reason. Lovers do irrational things without considering the consequences of their actions and how they can affect not only themselves, but others as well. They care more about instant gratification – whether for themselves or the person they love. Love can also be seen as another temptation placed before man. It is a path that a man on the path to enlightenment should not take, no matter how great the benefits may seem. The individual must realize that love ultimately leads to the destruction of enlightenment. The most dangerous thing about love is that once an individual succumbs to it, it is extremely difficult to go back. It is for this reason that love is perhaps the most powerful of all the temptations and trials that man must overcome to achieve enlightenment...