Classics English Literature

Classics English literature

Introduction:

Love as a subject of study in its entirety can be a very broad subject. However, depending on what a student or a researcher wants to know concerning the subject the field of study may be limited. You can study love in psychology, philosophy, literature, or sociology but the depth of he study will depend on the field.

Thus, love could be defined in two broad ways. One is the interpersonal type of love and the impersonal type of love. Interpersonal love is the kind of love we have for different human beings while impersonal love covers the way we feel about other animals, countries, meals e. t. c.

ANALYSIS:

The four articles represent different dimensions of love; they portray the way love is disseminated to different persons. In this type friendship type of love has been analyzed, consummate love is also highlighted, romantic love; empty love and infatuation have all been addressed.

No thank you john depicts some kind of romantic love gone sour. Thus, john is told in Sara

Classics English literature

Whittier’s 101 classic love songs “I dare say Meg or Moll would take Pity upon you, if you’d ask:

And pray don’t remain single for my sake who can’t perform that task”

This is because john is being asked to forget what he thinks is his true love. On the other hand, fairy tales and a dose of reality as well as the true love depict a form of love that combines intimacy, passion and commitment. These are examples of companionate love. this is reflected for example in true love where the narrator claims “Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion,

We still feel something we can call True love” [1] . Fairly tales and a dose of reality reflect the changing patterns of love over the years. Although it does not give a perfect example, it gives an outline of the general situation.

‘The other two’ displays different dimensions of love. In the first case, the story gives us the impression that Alice is a corporate wife. This is indicated by statements made by Mr. Waythorn concerning her personality. This, emphasized from two contexts in Edith Wharton’s ‘the other two’ where, firstly Waythorn realizes that his wife was "as easy as an old shoe”. In addition, this shoe had been worn by too many feet. in addition his wife’s elasticity was as a result of tensions in many different directions.( Alice Hackett – Alice Vatic – Alice Waythorn) – Alice had left a little of her personality and privacy to each of the three men. This convinces us that Alice’s third marriage had no intimacy or passion only commitment was there. This is an example of empty love. However, Alice felt passionate for Vatic. Thus, we could assume that Alice was still infatuated with varick.

At the closing moments of the other two Waythorn takes his cup and laughs. Waythorn is probably laughing at himself since he had not taken into account all the issues that were mentally disturbing him. These, confirmed by his second realization when he claims, “He had fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man” in Edith Wharton’s the other two. Now he saw that Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances, which forced her into, continued

Classics English literature

relation with it, and by the traces, it had left on her nature. With grim irony, Waythorn compared himself to a member of a syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife’s personality and his predecessors were his partners in the business. If there had been any element of passion in the transaction, he would have felt less deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her change of husbands like a change of weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses; for resisting Hackett, for yielding to varick; for anything but her acquiescence and her tact. She reminded him of a juggler tossing knives; but the knives were blunt and she knew they would never cut her”.

REFERENCE:

Catherine Orenstein. “Fairy tales and a dose of reality”. New York Times 3 mar, 2003.

Edith Wharton .the other two. Kessinger publishing .new York. 2004.

Viorst, Judith. True love. Retrieved on 21 November 2007. Available at: www.poemhunter.com /poem/true-love/

Whittier, Sara. 101 Classic Love Poems. 2003. McGraw-Hill. Available at:

www.infoplease.com/t/poetry/rossetti/no-thank-you-john.html

[1] www.infoplease.com/t/poetry/rossetti/no-thank-you-john.html

Classics English literature