The Themes Of Love, And 'Narcissus'

When analyzing ancient Egyptian love songs, what I firstly noted was that the concept of love was not stereotyped in being predominantly a masculine or a feminine concept. Both men and woman expressed their emotions of both pain and joy throughout (Fowler 1994:30). However, some contrast does exist in a few songs in that girls are portrayed as being more assertive, more dominant and taken more initiative than boys (Fowler 1994:40). This is clear as boys are never portrayed in addressing their loved one in the second person, rather in the third person and also, does not initiate action but rather sits and waits for action to come his way (Fowler 1994:62). Thus, these love songs provide us with an insight into the manner which couples behaved, and were viewed by others when in love. This view and understanding of love I believe is a direct reflection of the ancient Egyptian society where woman were seen as being sexually untrustworthy and men the slave to this sexual nature of woman.

Love is a concept that was scattered throughout the novel Troy by Adele Geras. It was used to betray, or to bring happiness, during the all famous Trojan War that the book centers around. Either way, love was used to motivate the characters we follow in the story whether it was Xanthe getting away from Boros, or Marpessa betraying her sister for a guy. Love was the way these characters achieve their goals, without the love in the story, plot lines and character development certainly would not have been the same. Which is why the main characters in the city of Troy used their feelings to achieve greater things.

Uncommon within the preponderance of Olympian gods, with the exclusion of the rather tenacious Zeus. His romantic escapades were frequent and never too long since his last. However, no action goes without consequence. This can be perceived in its prime within the myth of Echo and Narcissus. In this instance, Zeus uses the help of a nymph named Echo, “To keep Hera occupied with gossip while Zeus crept away on one his romantic escapades” (Head 27). It is shown that Zeus fully aware of the rash and unforeseeable acts of Hera, left Echo vulnerable and susceptible. Suspectedly, when Hera unearths the truth she is prevaded with outrage; unable to vent her ferocity with Zeus she condemns Echo to a life without a voice. Able only to repeat the sounds she had previously heard. Consequently, it is evident that there are numerous cases of infidelity each holding its own

Love is exclusive between the loved and lover because humans tend to prioritize love above all else in the world as it leads to fulfillment. For the beginning of my paper, I intend to compare two useful arguments from Aristophanes and Socrates that transpired in Plato’s The Symposium as their ideas apply to the exclusivity of love. Additionally, my paper will contain my reflection on love through examining the importance of love to human flourishing, perfect and imperfect loves, what and who love is properly for, the relationship between love and beauty, and the relationship between love and desire in order to further comprehend the encompassing relationship between love and exclusivity.

Meanwhile, there was the mighty Zeus, the king of the gods, who was married to the goddess Hera. Hera is the goddess of War and Honesty, but she had an awful temper and often took it out on her husband, Zeus. Hera only loved Zeus because he was the king of gods and she wanted some of that power for herself, so she never let him leave her side, and although he was her husband, she talked badly about him, and constantly blamed and insulted him. Aphrodite witnessed this many times and started to feel empathy for Zeus, she knew Zeus was kind and didn’t deserve to be treated like that. At this, anger burned inside of Aphrodite for Hera and what she did to hurt Zeus, and as this anger burned she felt a passion. Aphrodite casually began to develop feelings for Zeus. She always told herself she shouldn’t, that Zeus was married and she needed to stay away, but she couldn’t help how she felt for Zeus.

One of the overarching themes that spanned over the many books we read over the semester, was the nature of love and the search for meaning. Love is an inherent aspect of humanity, and while it is an often inexplicable and complex sentiment, it is intrinsically connected with mankind's search for meaning in life. Love often leads a person in directions that they do not expect, and this is obvious in the very different applications of love in different books. However, one common idea about the relationship between love, suffering, and wisdom, can be argued for based off the ancient texts that we read. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Antigone, and The Tale of Genji, love is used as a vehicle for wisdom through suffering and loss.

Orpheus’ story is still read and studied around the world to tell us to not make the same mistakes he did. The moral of his story can apply to all of us in the real world today. For this reason, his story will always be studied and stay

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” (Lao Tzu). In the myths Nanabush Creates the World, Orpheus and Eurydice and Savitri and Satyavan, they all have someone that they love. Their loved ones may be their weakness, however, the bravery they have comes from their loved ones. There are different kinds of loves exist whether it is in the past or in the present. Loves are everywhere, it is just how you see it. For example, love in a family can make one’s family strong and reliable and love between wife and husband can make create trust and responsibility. No matter what they must go through, they always willing to save each other.

In Plato’s Symposium, sequential speeches praise the god of Love, but they stray from truth until Diotima’s speech provides a permanent form in which love “neither waxes nor wanes” (Sym. 211A). Through the speeches, love shifts from identifying with the concrete to the abstract, but still ultimately advances goals of present: Phaedrus sees love as helping “men gain virtue,” Aristophanes as only a “promise” to restore humans to their “original nature” and Pausanias and Eryximachus have to use two changing notions of love (Sym. 180B, 193D). In contrast, Diotima relates love as the closest humans can come to immorality, a future goal motivating us to seek completeness and an uninhibited timelessness. She uses this shift to explain love’s

Love exists in the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro and in the short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. in Munro’s short story the plot is that of a mentally ill wife, Fiona, who falls in love with another patient while her husband still tries to hang on to their old love. Her husband eventually wants to have an affair with the wife of the man his wife is having an affair with. Their love changed because of their circumstances due to ill health. Carver’s story discusses the different definitions of love due to the type and quality of relationships; everyone has a different definition. Love also exists all over the world within different environments and cultures. The concept of love depends upon the environment in which it inhabits. Love is dependent on the life of the people in love and it also depends on their current environment. Nature and nurture are also huge factors into the development and process of love. What nature and nurture mean is whether it is due to how the person lives and acts along with their personality compared to whether it’s all in their genetics beforehand. Love is more on the nurture side instead of the nature side of human experience.

Love is a special emotion that most individuals strives for. Part of a human’s nature is to love and long for another individual. This feeling has existed since the beginning and will continue to exist until the end. The term “love,” however, is very broad. To understand more easily what the term means, the Ancient Greeks came up with three terms to symbolize the three main types of love. The three classical types of love are very important to understand, as they will continue to exist until the world ends. The selected poems read reflect three classical types of love.

The myth that Aristophanes tells asserts the aim of love as having found your other half. He relates our human story to an instintictive belonging to our other half, however Diotima refutes this by saying that we will not search for our other half unless they are considered good. The objective of love is to find goodness and sustain it. While Aristophanes story asserts that only the andrygynous pair can reproduce, Love can still be reproduced into something beautiful not just in body but also in mind. When two men share and birth a new beautiful idea, that is of something which is good. Diotima also disproves Agathon’s conception of love as he merely describes its nature: loving that which is good and beautiful. During his account, it seems that Agathon is only describing himself as the beautiful, wise and good thing which is object of Love rather than describe Love himself. This is comparative to Socrates conception of love as Love is the lover of wisdom, which is considered to be in his own like as Socrates is a lover of wisdom as a philosopher. The philosopher seems to be the ideal Lover as they are always between ignorance and

Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered as a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies or music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being.

with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and

We only call a certain category of those in love, lovers (Symposium 7) and in contrast with what Aristophanes had said about lovers being in search of their other half, Diotima argues that lovers love what is good. After all, the aim of loving beautiful and good things, of course, is to possess them, because the possession of beautiful and good things is wisdom and with wisdom comes happiness and happiness is deep-down what everyone is ultimately in pursuit of.