Monday, February 14, 2005

   Happy St. Valentine's Day Y'all
Today is Valentine’s Day and the weather outside is: rainy. And who walked home in the rain? That’s right, I did. I enjoyed it, too.

Anyways. Valentine’s Day is a couples conspiracy against singles. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Yes, I’m single as the day is long, don’t you people already know this? I sit at home alone and read and do my homework. Or go to work, dance, Bible study, or fencing. I have very little social life. I don’t want to hear you guys complaining that nice guys finish last because all the nice guys I meet already have girlfriends. *grrr* *shrugs* *smiles*

I’m really not all that bitter. It just gets annoying after awhile. Watching all the couples holding hands in the hallway together, huddling under the umbrellas outside. People walking around with bouquets of roses, chocolates, and chrysanthemums. *sigh*

In honor of today, though, we have the Window Pane Thought for the Month:

Never give up on true love.
- Nobody

In other news, I did enjoy reading the articles in The Gamecock last week that concerned today. Pretty much all written by guys. One was incredibly poignant and the other two were humorous. (Paper comes out three times a week). If any of y’all are interested, I’ll type one up maybe.

So, how are y’all spending your day today? I am celebrating by wearing black leather pants and a black sweater. *whoo* Maybe I’ll stick Music From Another Room in tonight. Guys, gals, that is the best romantic comedy ever go pick it up from the video store and watch it with your significant other.

Now, for your reading pleasure, all the notes I have about love I took in my religion class semester that involved romantic love versus religious love. I apologize if it seems choppy, but it’s coming straight from my notes. Enjoy.

+ is it murder to dissect love?
+ love is the product of culture, Romantic love folk sayings
^ “all’s fair in love and war”
^ “love is never having to say you’re sorry”
^ “love is blind”
^ “better love and lost than never to have loved at all”
+ metaphorical language used as teaching devices (i.e. “falling in love”)

Uses of Enchantment
+Bruno Bettelheim on fairy tale love stories as instruments of socialization
^ our culture influences us
+ We are programmed

History of Romantic Love
+ Plato’s Symposium 4th c. B.C.
^ “Eros” = drive to merge with or to posses
^ has philosophical goal to lift from the dark quagmire
^ best attachment between mentor and student
^ “erotic” comes from this dicussion
^ way to spiritualize normal animal attraction
+ Ovid 43 B. C. – 17 A. D.
^ wrote: Amores, Ars Amatoris, and Remedia Amoris
^ first love advice giver
^ the meaningful pleasure comes into the chase
^ “love is a thing full of trembling fear”
+ Courtly love 12th c. B. C.
^ Tristan and Isoldt written and used as a basis
^ chivalry – cf St. Francis (“new mistress will be poverty”)
^ Andreas Capellanus, Art of Courtly Love (the rules!)
^ illicit love comes to the fore
^ “fobidden love tastes sweetest”
^ Dante, Vita Nuova, book about Beatrice
^ a man need to have extramarital affair
^ the rules (from Art of Courtly Love samples:
- marriage is no real excuse for not loving
- he who is not jealous, cannot love
- it is well known that love is either steadily increasing or decreasing (“must be volatile” in layman’s terms)
- that which the love takes against beloved is nothing
- it is not proper to love any woman one would be ashamed to marry
- when made public, love rarely endures
- the easy achievement of love isn’t worth it, hard to get is prized
- every lover turns pale in the presence of his beloved
- the heart palpitates at the sight of the beloved
- new love puts to flight the old one
- if love diminishes, it falls and dies
- man is apprehensive
- real jealously always increases love
- jealously and therefore love is always increased when one suspects the beloved
- he whom the thought of love vexes, eats and sleeps little
- a lover can never have enough of the solace of beloved
- a man who is vexed by too much passion cannot love
- nothing forbids one woman from being loved by two men, and vice versa
+ Romantic period late 18th, early 19th c.
- Surm und Drang (storm and stress)
- Goethe: the “Demonic” force
 going to Italy and writing it to backbone
 Sorrows of Werther, love suicide vogue
 speaks as the force that overwhelms and pushes to other
 expressed musically by Beethoven in “Egmont” overture
 romanticizing of animal lust
- romantic love produces death (i. e. if you love romantically instead of religiously, you’ll die from it for more information read Tristan and Isoldt or Romeo and Juliet)
+ late 20th c. mental health problem: “love addiction”
- uses it to fulfill needs, medication i.e.: going to prostitutes, obsession
- grows dependant on behavior i.e.: like on drugs
- also addicted to other things

+ Tristan and Isoldt (Wagner opera in 1859)
- “high tale of love and death”
- a cautionary tale
- blending of wisdoms, e.g. “Courtesy of God”
- goddess of Love/Fate
- love potion device – love at first sight
- Metropolitan Opera “Tristan”
- “Liebestoel” (Love-Death) final aria
- influence of Schopenhauer, Eastern religion, and Wagner’s extramarital flirtation with Mathilde Wesendonck
+ Moon/June article
- thesis: we are programmed --> when we believe to be acting spontaniously, we act most programmed
- married partner cannot fulfill all expectations of partner that comes from the culture
- “wisdom is more important in the choosing of a partner than passion”
+ Romantic love is equated with Tragedy and Married love is equated with Comedy

+ Religious/ Biblical “love”
- Divine Comedy (vs. Romantic Tragedy)
- Marriage symbolism (Song of Songs aka Song of Solomon)
- Marriage and Sacramentalism (current marriage debate)
+ Biblical basis – passages:
- “Greater love know no more than this than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend”
- “Love is not jealous”
- “Love is patient”
- “Love God with all your body, mind, heart, and soul…love they neighbor as self”
- John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world…”)
- “Perfect love cast without fear”
+ Agape – self giving love

+ cultures define what they mean by love
- Tristan: “love passed them hard” –“terrible”
- Ovid: “Love is a thing full of trembling fear”
- Benedetto Croce: “Marriage is the grave of love.”
- Chinese: “To be sincere in love is grotesque.”
- Existentaialist: “And yet a kiss (like blubber)’d blur and slip
without the assuring skull beneath the lip.” – John Frederick Nims
+ Erich From, Art of Loving
- a love doctor from 50s
- theory of love begins with theory that man is lonely and anxious
- love means action, doing rather than making yourself an object
- infatuations are okay; happen when anxiety is suddenly reduced --> possibility of intimacy
- loving overcomes anxiety
- reciprocal giving and taking only if you have:
1) overcome dependency
2) overcome narcissistic omnipotence (in other words: don’t be too self confident)
3) overcome wish to exploit others
4) overcome the wish to hoard
5) acquire faith in own human powers
6) courage to rely on own powers

+ “Human passion discloses diving passion” – Andrew Greeley
+ Dante’s “Natural” love (“of God”) as seed of every virtue, mischief, distorted expression
+ Love and Freedom --> “In love you can do no wrong” – Charles Manson
“Love God and do as you please” – St. Augustine

*phew* Hope y’all enjoyed that. Now I’m going to go and send everyone on my e-mail list a Valentine’s e-card. *goes cross-eyed*

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