The theme is a Leitmotif of Romantic literature.
Consciousness lies outside the moral order, observing, regretting, tragically sundered from the thing that it would possess. But possession, when it comes, is both supremely erotic and also a desecration, a removal of the object from its domestic shrine. The tragedy of Enlightenment is enacted in every erotia adventure, as love runs free from marriage to become a personal acquisition, a mark of distinction, with no rite of passage into the moral community From object to object the observing consciousness wanders never satisfied, never at home, animated by an incurable