Some people blame their unhappiness on love; others express their happiness with love.
Love can be a
misfortune; it can destroy someone’s stability and emotions. Over the
time, civilizations around the world –Greeks, Romans- have used love as
center for their literary work. As a matter of fact, mythology relies on
love and its characteristics; it is through love, lies and revenge that
Greek Gods are closer to human beings. Greeks philosophers such as
Plato and Aristotle distinguish two types of love, the first one is
called tender- love and it is almost impossible someone gets hurt by
this kind of love; the second one is the passion-love type which makes
you rip your heart out. There are many people, who spend their lives
looking for love, but they do not find it and surely there are other
people who find it, yet this does not mean they will be happy. As sung
by Ville Valo “love can say no” however love belongs to the human nature
and its complexity, whether it hurts or not, love brings together
death, life, anger, passion, and lust. This nature of love is what Percy
Shelley describes in his poem Love’s Philosophy (1820); elements mingle together for a functional reason; because there cannot be A without B, there is not you without me.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a Romantic
writer, he explored imagination, self-expression, nature, beauty, and as
the other Romantics he separated himself from reason. In Love’s Philosophy Shelley’s
use of nature is evident. In fact, he departs from nature to explain
what love is about and how he feels towards it. The poem itself is a
gem; it establishes elemental relationships in nature, for example
sunlight with earth, rivers with ocean, and compares them to the
primordial relation of love. Additionally, we can appreciate the
author’s wish for love and its uniqueness. In spite of this brilliant
literary work, one should wonder is love that magical? Shelley
associates love with life, nevertheless we shall consider that love is
also death (not literarily). In this sense, I suggest death as the
sadness and heartache any human being can go through because of
heartbreaking. Certainly, heartbreaking is part of life and experience,
but there is always someone who says “I will die for you” and “I will
kill myself if you leave me”. The truth is that love is a manifestation
of many aspects of the self; we can look at it as death or life.
Love is subjective and because of this
it should not be mixed with sex or attraction. Although these last two
terms play a role in love, this is not always the case. On the same
note, love is unreasonable and unquestionable; men can love men, women
can love women there is not a pattern in respect to loving someone. The
view of society on who loves whom is the changeable particularity and
this particularity is often linked to sex – not love- and the function
of sex for the human kind. The predisposition of the human mind to judge
love in regards of sexual intercourse has been a barrier for the
self-expression of love through human history. For instance, in the
Roman republic (84-54BC) a poet named Catullus wrote poems in which he
exposed his perspectives of penises, vaginas and people. These
perspectives originated an ambiguity and misjudgments in Rome and, thus
in love. Ironically, literary studies have found that the purpose of
Catullus’ disposal of erotic words and phrases was a strategy of
discourse. Unfortunately, Roman society did not contemplate Catullus’
love for Lesbia and his romanticism. Instead, they criticized his sexual
comments on men’s love and the emancipation of women (Fernandez, 2000,
p.14).
According to Love’s Philosophy if everything mingles with other things why would I mingle with you? This is the final statement of the poem; however we can go further to comprehend the statements that are presented along. Shelley writes: “The fountains mingle with the river / and the rivers with the ocean” (1-2). As I mentioned before, first he establishes a relation in which he points out to the source of a bigger entity – the ocean. He allures the connection of elements in order to form something more impressive. He continues by saying: Nothing in the world is single/ all things by a law divine/In one another’s being mingle (5-7). Praising how nature is divine, Shelley practically states that everything has its other half; there is no cavity for singularity. He finally ends the first stanza with “Why not I with thine?” (8). In my opinion he declares that if the ocean has rivers and these one have fountains , he does not see an obstacle to be with his other half. Allegories to the vast nature are essential for this poem to be graceful and joyful; I suppose Shelley’s idea was to give to the reader an appealing view of love.
According to Love’s Philosophy if everything mingles with other things why would I mingle with you? This is the final statement of the poem; however we can go further to comprehend the statements that are presented along. Shelley writes: “The fountains mingle with the river / and the rivers with the ocean” (1-2). As I mentioned before, first he establishes a relation in which he points out to the source of a bigger entity – the ocean. He allures the connection of elements in order to form something more impressive. He continues by saying: Nothing in the world is single/ all things by a law divine/In one another’s being mingle (5-7). Praising how nature is divine, Shelley practically states that everything has its other half; there is no cavity for singularity. He finally ends the first stanza with “Why not I with thine?” (8). In my opinion he declares that if the ocean has rivers and these one have fountains , he does not see an obstacle to be with his other half. Allegories to the vast nature are essential for this poem to be graceful and joyful; I suppose Shelley’s idea was to give to the reader an appealing view of love.
In the second and final stanza,
Shelley’s comparison and metaphorical words of love and nature become
stronger. He magnifies love and the search he has for it; mountains and
heaven, moonbeams kissing earth, and waves clasping one another. In
addition, he asks himself this time “what is all this sweet work worth/
if thou not kiss me” (15-16). Apparently, he only needs a kiss for love
to emerge and sometimes this is what some people think. Somehow, I
differ from Shelley and the vision of love in Love’s Philosophy because
it is too idealist for me and even though love works properly
sometimes, the fact is that it makes people tear up a bit. Smiles and
tears, this is the actual philosophy of love; a dichotomy that has the
human being as the center of its functionality.
And while I write this essay, I
think of my dear friend who is suffering because of love and betrayal. I
just saw her crying this afternoon and I wanted to help her but I could
not. At some point it is inevitable not to get hurt; Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy
does not show this. Certainly, love is an amalgamation of –good and
bad- feelings that according to the situation can change and block out
the reasoning. Personally, I believe love is like a knife; it depends on
you if you hurt yourself. I’m one of the few people on earth who is not
anxious to find love. Moreover I still do not see the point on finding
my other half, maybe time will change this thought though. Nonetheless, I
admire the people who spend their lives on their own, they are wiser,
they are smarter and they know more about love than people in love. If I
do not find my other half, I will still be happy because happiness does
not come from passion-love. Actually happiness comes from our inner
self, our experiences and our surrounding, therefore we can be the
fountains of our own rivers, and we can be the rivers of our oceans.
Source: http://www.belumsarapan.com/
Photo: Tumbler
Photo: Tumbler
