Love2

Love

Platonic Love •Man’s love is higher than woman’s love •Base people only feel physical love; satisfaction of desire •Love helps us find our other halves •Love is a desire for goodness and happiness •Love is the nearest humans came come to immortality; procreation •Following love leads one to see beauty as infinite •Man’s life should be spent in contemplation of absolute beauty; in contact with the Truth •Origin of all power and activity is in the spiritual realm •Man can be too caught up in externals to see the ideal •1 + 1 = 1 •Shadow is earthly love; substance is heavenly love

Three-stage progression of Platonic love •Love depends on the senses •Love based on reason •Love based on spiritual understanding

John Donne: “The Good-Morrow” (excerpt)

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares, And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest, Where can we finde two better hemispheares Without sharpe North, without declining West? What ever dyes, was not mixt equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die. The two lovers find their respective worlds in each other’s eyes.

Petrarchan Love •Neo-platonic: idealized love, but active; God loved man and formed the world out of chaos, so love held the world together; Beauty was the divine idea in the material object (i.e., outward beauty signifies inward beauty) •Neo-platonism idealized Courtly love and freed it from its aspect of sinfulness (carnal fulfillment •Love is sickness; hot flashes; can die for love •Past affairs anticipate the present •First love can be a shattering experience •Love is not reciprocal (unlike courtly love)

Petrarchan Conventions •Golden hair flies free •Eyes like sun, stars •Broken heart, burning flame •Walks like an angel; goddess •Voice like music •Cheeks like roses •Lips red like coral •Neck and breast are snow white •Breath like perfume •Love compared to war and plague (disease) •Comparison of a lover to a ship at sea •His wooing to a siege

Shakespeare: Sonnet 130 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound. I grant I never saw a goddess go: My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Ovidian Love (anti-Petrarchan) •A rich, passionate sensuality; profane •Frankly sexual; mock the usual Petrarchan convention by showing the maid passionately but vainly wooing the man (Venus & Adonis) •Provocative love scenes of Hero & Leander: “far cry from the sonnet ladies on their platonic pedestals •Classical realism; often slanted toward sarcasm & satire •In Ovidian approach, you never hear from the woman; it’s her responsibility to remain firm—if he strays it’s her fault •After Petrarchan, the greatest literary factor in the development of Elizabethan poetry •Wider use of classical myth; love elegy; heroic epistle

Ovid’s advice to men •Do make maid’s acquaintance; take advantage while she’s grieving; hold back gifts; use body language; be ambiguous; get husband to like you; use deceit and tears; be Protean; lie if caught deceiving •Don’t: be too intellectual; look too good; get drunk; use too much force; praise her to your best friend

Ovid’s advice to women •Do: keep him hoping; use gentle looks; mix in rebuff; make him jealous •Don’t: be too proud; trust friends

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