Nick Catalano is a TV writer/producer and Professor of Literature and Music at Pace University. He reviews books and music for several journals and is the author of Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter, New York Nights: Performing, Producing and Writing in Gotham , A New Yorker at Sea,, Tales of a Hamptons Sailor and his most recent book, Scribble from the Apple. For Nick's reviews, visit his website: www.nickcatalano.net.
Few subjects have preoccupied writers as much as romantic love. There are many kinds of love but you know what I’m talking about and are acquainted with the most famous love stories.
Although the love between Haemon and Antigone must have been intense because they both committed suicide, Sophocles, in Antigone (441 BC,) is not particularly interested in their relationship because he has a different story to tell, so we don’t know what went on with them. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe has a Babylonian origin and is treated by such luminaries as Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, but the myriad mysteries that characterize the intensity of Romantic love in the modern sense are not dealt with much. Deep emotional/ psychological connections between people is a difficult subject.
In Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard’s brilliant film, Shakespeare in Love, Queen Elizabeth claims that the true nature of romantic love has been missed by poets who treat it humorously, satirically, sleazily etc. We need to remind ourselves that Queen Bess had amazing literary knowledge and tastes. Actually, she was the first to recognize great dramatic art when she granted James Burbage the first license to open a theater in 1576.
In a powerful scene, our heroine in the film Viola, De Lesseps challenges Queen Elizabeth to say that there is one playwright who has succeeded in creating the depths and breadth of a great love.
Actually, Shakespeare structures Romeo and Juliet so successfully that writers ever since have included elements of his formula. He establishes the theme of romantic love immediately in Act 1 as Romeo emotes wildly over his girl friend Rosaline causing comic nausea in his pal Mercutio.
Shakespeare’s formula is to have a lover obsessively referencing his present romance before he meets his great love, in this case, Juliet. Romeo constantly gushes about Rosaline with his pal Mercutio as they plan to have some fun by secretly planning to crash a party given by The Capulets - archenemies of the Montagues, Romeo’s family. But when he espies Juliet we have have before us the most famous incident of love at first sight.
He instantly abandons his thoughts of Rosaline and astounds the audience with the amazing depth of his feelings for Juliet.
This suddenness is accompanied by a highly sophisticated greeting with Juliet who matches Romeo with clever sophistication. The exchange is articulated in a famous sonnet which illustrates the romantic nature of both characters. And after this warm flirtation ends Romeo kisses Juliet. Thus the bard immediately establishes the “manage of the minds” requirement of great love that he writes of as the great essence of true romance in his sonnet 116 and also reveals the lovers instant sexual passion for each other.
This formula descends down through the ages. No matter the creative form, play, novel, drama, movie or TV series this formula dominates great love stories. Artistic creators don’t have much time to develop the depth of a great romance and Shakespeare’s formula solves the time problem.
In modern films dealing with romantic love of some depth, we see Shakepeare’s formula continuously adopted. In Gone With the Wind Scarlett has gone years with a mistaken notion of romantic love. In Casablanca Ilsa has avoided it out of loyalty as has Lisa in An American in Paris. In Captain Corelli’s Mandolin -- a wartime saga love story which succeeds in portraying a deeper romance -- we have Pelagia 'in love' with Mandras only to discover an obsessive truer love (à la Romeo) with Corelli.
Switching gears for a moment, we can turn to the first act of Puccini’s La Boheme and see an even deeper variation. Here, Rudolpho and Mimi give up high aesthetics for each other: Rudolpho for poetry and Mimi for love of nature. Once again, there isn’t much time to develop this 'marriage of the minds' attraction but in Puccini’s genius aria, "Che Gelida Manina," Rudolpho Immediately, passionately falls for Mimi. And she quickly returns her love with equal intensity in "Mi Chiamo Mimi." Interestingly, unlike the creative resources available in movie technology, it is the great music that sweeps us without question into their instant romance.
Once the marriage of the minds formula becomes successful in great art works, various creators begin dealing with the myriad complications generated by the variety and complexity of romantic love; themes dealing with endless searching, mysterious irony, psychological convolution, and human suffering.
In Virgil’s Aeneid we are introduced to 'unrequited' love and the suffering of Dido. Through myths and national literatures, we witness the tragedy of 'adulterous' love in Dante’s Paola and Francesca. Dante, whose catholicity demands their endless suffering, actually sobs as he connects with their humanity. Ovid’s Metamorphosis , Boccaccio’s Decameron, and Chaucer’s Tales all deal with the conspicuous challenges undertaken by women committed to 'marriage of the minds' simply because of their sex. The Arthurian legend constantly returns to the themes of adulterous love in works from Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur to Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot.
Modern literature deals more and more with psychological love issues and reaches an apotheosis of sorts in Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Despite the avalanche of literary and artistic efforts to portray some feature of romance, the subject perpetually receives criticism and even condemnation from some critics. Awhile back in Arts & Opinion I referenced Percy Shelley’s moving poem "The Indian Serenade" which deals with the irrational intensity of romance. One of the last century’s most famous critical texts, Theory of Literature, Rene Wellek condemns the poem because its intensity is ,for him, sentimental and immature. It is a reaction which has been articulated through the centuries by many writers who have never experienced anything near such deep emotionalism and therefore dismiss it as unreal.
THE INDIAN SERENADE
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream—
The Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The Nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart;—
As I must on thine,
Oh, belovèd as thou art!
Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;—
Oh! press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last.
There are,
of course, endless differential experiences possible
in intense romantic love , and in future essays we will
try to deal with more of them.
COMMENTS
Susan Steiger
WELL DONE AS ALWAYS. a GOOD SUBJECT NOT OFTEN WRITTEN
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