This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Oxymoron83 (talk | contribs) at 06:13, 21 July 2007 (Reverted 2 edits by 121.1.53.48 identified as vandalism to last revision by Iffer. using TW). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 06:13, 21 July 2007 by Oxymoron83 (talk | contribs) (Reverted 2 edits by 121.1.53.48 identified as vandalism to last revision by Iffer. using TW)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)| Part of a series on |
| Love |
|---|
 |
Types of love
|
| Social views |
| Concepts |
Romantic love is a form of sexual love that attempts to either partly, or in some cases entirely, transcend mere needs driven by looks, sexual desire, or material and social gain. These things, however, play an ironic role both in its arousal and justification. Secondly, it not only is dispersed with and even inherently related to family life, but often is to some extent or entirely free. In the intermittent sense but also as free the romantic is related to tradition and legend. But romance is, or has become, a major aspect of postmodernity, and its criteria include fashion and irony. Sexual revolutions have brought such changes about. Wit or irony ecompass the inherent instability of romance, fine-tuned to its late modern peculiarities. The conflict between romance's individuality and its framework of jealousy is dealt with by Rene Girard. In its independent mode it tends to be a tragic region lying somewhere between on the one hand an ethical, and on the other hand an aesthetic (or possibly debauched) life, combining significance with ennui.
Romantic love is contrasted with Platonic love which in all usages precludes sexual relations, yet only in the modern usage does it take on a fully asexual sense, rather than the classical sense in which sexual drives are sublimated. Sublimation tends to be forgotten in casual thought about love aside from its emergence in psychoanalysis and Nietzsche. (For an account of the way the modern usage of this term is distinguished from its original sense involving sublimation, see the article Platonic love.) Unrequited love can be romantic, if only in a comic or tragic sense, or in the sense that sublimation itself is comparable to romance, where the spirituality of both art and egalitarian ideals is combined with strong character and emotions. This situation is typical of the period of Romanticism, but that term is distinct from any romance that might arise within it. Romantic love might be requited emotionally and physically while not being consummated, to which one or both parties might agree.
Romance and Value
To the extent that it does not lead to procreation (or child-rearing, as it also might exist in same-sex marriage), romance is peripheral to society, though it may have virtues in the relief of stress, as a source of inspiration or adventure, or in development and the strengthening of certain social relations. Procreation itself elicits questions about an ultimate purpose. Similarly, profound romance tends to inspire questions and reflection about physical relations, identity, and the meaning of intimacy. Sex, with spiritual love, in romance for its own sake, is one way in which spiritual love tends to be questioned, insofar as it can actually be mixed with the erotic and yet be ostensibly of intrinsic value. Moreover, any palpable aspect of the person can be cynically chalked up to appearance. Romance then, raises questions of emotivism (or in a more pejorative sense,nihilism) such as "If I am attracted to the soul and the inner person, am I merely an aesthete of the spirit?" It also sets up a rivalry between itself, marriage, and other forms of spirituality.
In other words, "romantic" has both the connotations of courtly love and urgent, mutual physical desire, or both spirituality and superficiality. A parallel division occurs in marriage, where sexual relations prepare for and harmonize with later responsibilities. In marriage this combination is considered potentially harmonious, whereas in romance taken by itself the role of spirituality tends to be discordant. The synonymous "erotic" has a more unequivocal connotation. Hence romantic love is problematic, raising the question how much spirituality is desired or necessary, and this lends itself to tragedy, while marriage tends to be dramatically comic (see altruism).
Romance Within the Relationship
Romantic love is, however, also a relative term, that distinguishes moments and situations within a relationship. There is often, initially, more emphasis on the emotions than on physical pleasure. Romantic love generally involves a mix of emotional and sexual desire for another as a person, but within the context of a relationship or marriage it means a temporary freeing or optimizing of intimacy, either in a particularly luxurious manner (or the opposite as in the "natural"), or perhaps in greater spirituality, irony, or peril to the relationship.
The boundary between romance and marriage has become complicated but, in general, child-rearing is counter to certain fundamental features of romantic love, such as its transitory and independent quality. But despite its primordial implication romantic love tends to develop in parallel with free society and the liberation of mankind. It involves a reciprocity of the sexes that appears in the ancient world perhaps primarily in myth (where it is in fact often the subject of tragedy, for example in the myths of Theseus and Atalanta). Noteworthy female freedom or power was then the exception rather than the rule, though this is a matter of speculation and debate. At the same time Christianity has had another effect on romance, by asserting the spirituality of marriage. This is at least slightly ironic, since religion is the origin of much liberation and emancipation.
Romantic love and marriage, and the conflict between the two, are topics in philosophy, theology, and ethics. A pure form of love or eros is the topic of the Symposium of Plato, and it is important in the Phaedrus and Republic. With respect to problems and conflicts about love, the plays of Shakespeare are paramount. Later modern philosophers such as La Rochefoucauld, Hume and Rousseau also focused on morality, but desire was central to French thought, and Hume himself tended to adopt a French worldview and temperament. Desire in this milieu meant a very general idea termed "the passions," and this general interest was distinct from the contemporary idea of "passionate" now equated with "romantic." Love was a central topic again in the subsequent movement of Romanticism, which focused on such things as absorption in nature and the absolute, as well as Platonic and unrequited love in German philosophy and literature.
There is current debate between the popular mimetic desire theory of Rene Girard and the views of some feminists, such as Toril Moi, who argue that it does not account for the woman as inherently desired. Other philosophers and authors interested in the nature of love are Jane Austen, Stendhal, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, George Meredith, Leo Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Proust, D.H. Lawrence, Freud, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Hemingway, Henry Miller, Deleuze, and Alan Soble.
Properties of romantic love include these:
- It cannot be easily controlled.
- It is not overtly (initially at least) predicated on a desire for sex as a physical act.
- If requited, it may be the basis for lifelong commitment.
See also
- Biological Attraction
- Courtship
- Hug
- Kiss
- Marriage
- Romance novels
- Courtly love
- Erotomania
- Erotophobia
- Florence Nightingale Effect
- The Four Loves
- Limerence
- Love-shyness
- Personal relationship
- Romanticism
- Valentine's Day
- Romantic friendship
References
- This phenomenon is expressed perhaps in popular culture as "throwing game." In Marxism the romantic might be considered an example of alienation.
- Beethoven, however, is the case in point. He had brief relationships with only a few women, always of the nobility. His one actual engagement was broken off mainly because of his conflicts with noble society as a group. This is evidenced in his biography, such as in Maynard Solomon's account.
- Given his analysis of hedonism and the aescetic ideal in The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche might find such a question as this amusing or ridiculous. Shakespeare raises a similar criticism about the ascetic ideal in Measure for Measure, in Isabella.
- Cf. the so-called "erotic ascent" in Plato's Symposium, and Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Stages on Life's Way, and other works in aesthetics, religion and philosophy, and also the teachings of Buddhism.
- see Alex Comfort.
- Cf. Hegel's Philosophy of History, or womenintheancientworld.com.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church
- The Missing Mother: The Oedipal Rivalries of René Girard. Toril Moi, Diacritics Vol. 12, No. 2, Cherchez la Femme Feminist Critique/Feminine Text (Summer, 1982), pp. 21-31
- Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World. Pantheon Books, 1956.
- Francesco Alberoni, Falling in love, New York, Random House, 1983.