What is the character for romantic love in classical Chinese? In Mandarin, 愛 means romantic love. However, New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Rouzer has this to say about its use in literary Chinese:


  This character [愛] usually does not imply "romantic love" in literary
  Chinese, as it does in the modern East Asian languages.


So which character(s) are used for romantic love in classical Chinese?
This should be a clever question!

In classical Chinese
“爱” should be love to culture, nature, mess people or emperor(the culture emblem)
“恋” should be romantic love to another person, a butterfly loves a flower (蝶恋花)
“情” is a noun of “exist love/adore”, more clearly --“恋情”

For further,
“慕” should like “adore”, always use as “爱慕”, “倾慕”



In traditional/full Chinese writing these words are


  愛、戀、蝶戀花、情、慕、愛慕、傾慕