Forgive me, I just received the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, and I am- so far - drunk off of it. So I will begin my drunk typing crusade.
"But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty-
Where Love's a grown-up God-
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship on a star."
Israfel, Edgar Allen Poe
In here, he talks about Love in heaven being 'grown up'. But yet still a God, as Love is. I have thought, but never too deeply, about if I were to fall in love and my love and I were to fall together in heaven, whether it would be necessary to become sexually attracted.
I doubt that, so I wonder what Love feels like in heaven.
Which Love is like looking at Monet? Don't look too closely, or it will lose its magic.
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Interesting combination choice, Poe and Monet. Seeing the two works juxtaposed really brings both into a new light.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if love in this sense, with the capitol L means Cupid (as it did in Chaucer's Troilus & Criseyde in which he adresses this very issue of love as a sexual passion vs. love as a chaste partnership).
Very throught provoking post.
I think your argument is quite right, Poe seems to be suggesting a much more heavenly place (which would rule out the lusty earth-bound courtly love of T & C).
ReplyDeleteIn fact Poe seems to be reconciling the aesthetic sensuality of attraction with the deeply soulful and near spiritual experience that come together to create love. ...a picture within a picture notion which substantiates the monet :)
I wonder....
ReplyDeleteLove can just be plain love never sexually motivated.I mean the love you have for your parents or best friend or brother is the purest in nature.Nothing err...physical.Why do we always look as love in romantic form and rarely as just love.Nothing sexual,nothing.
What about love which is not.I can give you instances where two people love each other,romantically in this case but there is nothing sexual in their love.
Thats true. I guess our love is still immature though in a lot of ways because we always fight for reasons terribly agile. And we find ways to manipulate the system of trust, which in return can mirror the way we see people in ways beyond their control and ours, sadly.
ReplyDeleteWe have no patients with love, I barley understand how to be patient with it.