1 Romantic and Ideal Love What is Love?

This term encompasses so many shades of feelings, affections, attachments that one can hardly give a definite answer. This question has disturbed human minds in the past, is disturbing in the present and it is possible to state for sure that it wont be answered in the future. Even if we focus our attention on a more specific feeling of love as love to our partner or so called romantic love still there are only bits of knowledge about it. Since a human being has appeared on the Earth we attempt somehow to express this felling, to convey the tempest of emotions that overwhelm us being in love, to shape its lines, to unite features of this extremely diverse state that each human experiences at different stages of his or her life in a general formula. Science, religion, philosophy and arts suggest their answers to this question. Scientists are convinced that romantic love is nothing else as a simple chemical reaction in a human body, caused by the necessity to pass our genes to the next generations. Boosting our mind by hormones, it brings our behavior and thoughts into total chaos. Charles Pasternak in his article The Science of Love cites the famous clinical neurologist Antonio Damasio, who states that emotions like love are neither intangible nor elusive. Contrary to traditional scientific opinion, feelings are just as cognitive as other percepts. They are the result of a most curious physiological arrangement that has turned the brain into the body's captive audience. (Pasternak) Through different experiments scientists are trying to prove that this state is temporal and all feelings that we experience are vanishing as soon as the aforementioned chemical reaction is over. According to their conclusion the state of love lasts for about two or three years, after which this feeling disappears and is replaced by a simple attachment, a habit to live with one of the most appropriate partners. Biologically speaking, the reasons romantic love fades may be found in the way our brains respond to the surge and pulse of dopamine

2 that accompanies passion and makes us fly, says Lauren Slater in National Geographic Magazines article on love and its reasons (Slater). Though the scientists provide with solid results of their investigations of love phenomenon, the most of this issue remains unexplained. From the Christian point of view love is a sacred sparkle of God that a person should support burning in their heart. The essence of Christian understanding of love is fully rendered in the passage to Corinthians, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.(Bible, Int.Version, 1 Corinthians, 13:4) Nevertheless, that it is said about interpersonal love of one person to another, romantic love does not differ greatly form this understanding, which is built on the basis of tolerance, indulgence and forgiveness. Since ancient times till today the brightest minds of philosophy have also been struggling to explain love form different philosophical perspectives. It includes a wide range of theories that reveal state of love from points of view of philosophical schools and directions. However, when philosophers face love themselves they rarely use their theories to cope with this feeling. The most devoted singers of love are artists. Being highly emotional and sensitive they have never tried to explain it but they celebrate it as they feel. If one wants to open the mystery of love one should refer to works of art, no matter what kind of art it is. Either a poem, or a dance, or a sculpture, or a song renders the depth of this feeling in the most convincing way giving a chance to everyone to enjoy the beauty of it. Love is a driving force of creativeness. A predominant number of artistic works is entirely dedicated to this feeling. It is remarkable how diverse and deep artists feel and how

3 masterfully they convey their emotional state. Often their love remains ideal, but still it never loses its beauty. Moreover, the inspiration even grows stronger. If we regard literature in particular, Petrarchan sonnets can serve as an example of it. Always being distant from his beloved he never betrayed his ideal Laura and his affection to her, continuing to write sonnets dedicated to her. Love is considered to be the very essence and the very sense of human life, without which it is not worthy to live. The final embodiment of love which society has found out is marriage. Dreams and expectations of love make a person move on, work, create. However, sometimes it is regarded as a voluntary surrender, sweet slavery. It is often said that in love one really loves, while another only allows loving him/herself. In this context Marlows song The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Sir Walter Raleighs poem The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd can be viewed as a good example of unpredictability of love. Song The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is an appeal to love. The author creates an image of spring nature. Spring is always associated with a period of bright and clear feelings. The image of nature is connected with the image of fertility. Marlow uses exquisite expressive means and stylistic devices in order to reveal the richness of the feeling he has to his beloved, for example, thee beds of roses, a kirtle embroidered all with leaves of myrtle, A belt of straw and ivy-buds, With coral clasps and amber-studs (Marlow). Full of expectations the main character (the Passionate Shepherd) promises to bring to his beloved all treasures of nature. The author has given a very appropriate title to the song The Passionate Shepherd. Love and passion is not one and the same thing and they should not be mixed up. However, a reader can obviously observe that it is not love but passion that makes the shepherd make such promises.

4 The Nymph from Raleighs poem The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd also suspects that the feeling the shepherd experiences is not actually love but passion. Passion is temporary and fleeting. As soon as an object of passion is reached, this feeling or rather a bunch of emotions vanishes and the object of passion loses its attractiveness. Love includes passion but it is not necessary that passion involves love. Regarding her answer, the Nymph has guessed about the shepherds real feeling and gives him a negative answer though in a very graceful way. The image of winter and autumn appears which are opposite to the image of spring, The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. (Raleigh) She reminds that spring does not last forever, so his feeling like flowers will also fade. She doubts whether it is true at all, If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue. (Raleigh) The Nymph is convinced that love is an attribute of youth, and passing away, youth will inevitably carry off love. To the certain extent she is right. Indeed, predominantly young people fall in love. Nevertheless, love is such a queer feeling that can visit a person at any life stage. The only thing expected from the Nymph is ideal love where they would be forever young and it would be always spring. The shepherd suggests romantic love which is unfortunately unshared. Love has become one of the crucial points of our life. Romantic or ideal, shared or unshared it fulfills our life with sense, drives us to actions, makes our hearts beat madly and believe in wonders. Love experience always leaves a deep imprint in our souls, but what

5 kind of imprint it is, predominantly depends on how we have managed to cope with love in our case. Since role of love is difficult to exaggerate certainly it is widely discussed in science and philosophical circles, regarded from religious perspectives and reflected in all kinds of arts.

6 Works Cited Marlow, Christopher. The Passionate Shepherd To His Love. Liminatium: English Literature Anthology. 5 June 2010. Web. 1 June 2011. Retrieved form http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/passionateshepherd.htm Pasternak, Charles. The Science of Love. First Science.com. 6 January, 2006. Web. 1 June 2011. Retrieved from http://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/love.asp Releigh, Wailter. The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd. Poetry-online.org. n.d. Web. 1 June 2011. Retrieved from http://www.poetry-online.org/raleigh_nymphs_reply.htm Slater, Lauren. True Love. National Geographic Magazine. February, 2006. Web. 1 June 2011. Retrieved from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/02/true-love/slatertext.html THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.. Biblegateway.com. Web. 1 June 2011