First Love: A Phenomenology of the One takes seriously literatureOCOs repeated attestations of a One in its stories, poems and plays entitled First Love. With this groundbreaking work, JAttkandt suspends the contemporary philosophical stricture against every idea of a whole to unmask the figure concealed behind the psychoanalytic myth of first love."

Ranging from the earliest drama to the theater of the 1980's this encyclopedia includes coverage of national drama and theater around the world, theater companies, and musical comedy. Arrangement of the 1,300 entries is alphabetically by name or subject with nearly 950 of these devoted to individual playwrights and their works.