This study contributes both to research on the literary presentation of love and to research on the writer Arnim. The study presents pioneering work by developing, on a systematic basis, a narratological and semiological concept of love and then successfully applies this concept to Achim von Arnim's novel Gräfin Dolores. It profiles Gräfin Dolores as a romantic novel par excellence that parades all facets of romantic love in order to subject them to a radical critique and thus to develop a new way of telling a love story.

Christian Metz, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main.