Love: The Universal Constant

Some say that the idea of love in modern terms differs conceptually from that of earlier periods. That argument is demonstrably false. Although love has been characterized in many different ways throughout the ages, the fundamental idea remains constant. No matter the eccentric personalities love is entitled to, love is what it is.

From a literary point of view, whether one reads the tender longing of Sappho, the unattainable desire of Petrarch, or the whimsical prose of Dickenson, the message of love-- despite its myriad of forms--remains the same. The concept of love particular to the piece of writing is equally a study of psychology, sociology and anthropology as it is a literary endeavor. As readers of literature, we do not learn anything intrinsically controversial about love across eras, but rather translate the timeless message of the many facets of love into literature and interpret its significance. The idea (or theme) of love does not change from text to text regardless of era, but rather has new traits tacked on as time progresses.

First, let us take a look at the works of one of the most brilliant female poets, Sappho. In her poem Rich-throned immortal Aphrodite, Sappho describes an insatiable desire for a woman, the pain of her refusal, and the dejected plea for release from the obsessive pursuit. Love struck, Sappho begs Aphrodite to make the woman hers. Sappho can only imagine the unbearable pain and sickness of a crushed heart if otherwise. In another poem, He looks to me to be in heaven, Sappho overwhelms readers with feelings that resemble butterflies in the stomch. The narrator of the poem has fallen in love with someone who “makes the heart leap in my breast;/ for watching you a moment, speech fails me,/ My tongue is paralyzed, at once a light fire runs beneath my skin, /my eyes are blinded, and my ears drumming.”

The concept of obsessive love is again illustrated is James Joyce's poem Araby. The main character seeks to profess his love to a young girl whom he has clearly fallen head over heels for. The lovesick lad claims that “a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into mysom./ I thought little of the future./ I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or,/ if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration./ But my body was like a harp/ and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”

Similar to obsessive love, literature about love that is lost is just as timeless. The melancholy that pervades the text is palpable in Countee Cullen's The Loss of Love. For example, the final lines: “I have no will to weep or sing,/ No desire to pray or curse;/ The loss of love is a terrible thing;/ They lie who say that death is worse.”

Simultaneously, in Petrarch's Canzoniere, Petrarch mourns the loss of his Laura. The unmistakable and undeniable sensation of loss and hopelessness is evident in both texts, despite more than 400 years between the writings. For instance, “and so bewildered, unconsoled my life/ is totally, that night and day it weeps,/ weary without a helm in stormy seas/ on a dubious course with no true guide.”

Then, there was Shakesphere’s Sonnet 57 that conveyed the realization that a fool in love is no more than a willing slave. The willing unwillingless of the speaker’s love makes one marvel at the truth of its depiction and at the tortured psychology which forces loved into the anguish of such impossible situations. “Being your slave, what should I do but tend./ Upon the hours and times of your desire?/ I have no precious time to spend,/ Nor services to do, till you require./….But, like a sad slave, stay and think nought/ Save, where you are how happy you make those./ So true a fool is love that in you will,/ Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

Almost half a millennium later, Emily Dickinson’s poem To lose thee moves readers with the same flooding emotions of a helpless lover. “To lose thee, sweeter than to gain/ All other hearts I knew./ is true the drought is destitute,/ But then I had the dew!/ The Caspian has its realms of sand,/ Its other realm of sea;/ Without the sterile perquisite/ No Caspian could be.

So we see, love is an ageless universal constant. The powerful emotions invoked by love obviously reveal no discernible difference in the impact it has had, regardless of when the work was composed. Because there is a certain knowledge that love is enduring through the centuries with all its accompanying emotions and crossing of philosophical and religious boundaries, there is nothing really to be “conjured” about love, but only added factors that are “discovered.”