Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Immortal Love and Timeless Classics

Does love have to be doomed to be deemed immortal? You can decide if this is a pertinent question or not. Lets take a look at some of the love stories that definitely make the Eternal Romance/Timeless Classics list and take it from there shall we.
Close your eyes and think of 'aeonian romance' and list out the stories/movies that come up in your mind. This is the list my mind bore from this exercise:
  • A walk to remember
  • Love Story
  • Titanic
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Tristan and Isolde
  • Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
  • The Notebook
More than half the list is tragic. One would also probably include Wuthering Heights (though not my kind of romance), Casablanca, Cleopatra and Antony, Gone with the wind, Orpheus and Eurydice, Lancelot and Guinevere etc etc.......Even Bella had to die in order to be with Edward forever (thou its a happy ending of sorts but its still tech dead)

So what is it about heartwrenching tragedies that make love iconic and etch a place in our hearts, the likes of which cannot be competed by stories with more warmer, happier notes.
"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic" once quipped Oscar Wilde. Why?
Is it because true love, often perceived as something so pure and rare, is infact too good to exist? Or is it because the shocks caused by such tragedies leave a more sizeable impression in our minds and hearts that they remain for a longer time than happier memories (something akin to us humans remembering the bad more than the good)?
Whatever be the reason, be it in words or on celluloid, an enduring tale of love lost always, always, has struck a more lasting chord in our hearts and our history.


- KPR

2 comments:

Gowri said...

Koyel, it is human tendency to go after something unfulfilled. we always look for a closure. When that does not happen, we happen to hang on to that incomplete or unfulfilled feeling.

True love, koyel, will never ask for a closure. It exists like air, water and nature around us. Human beings try to make it private and get possessive about something so selfless as love. We give them tags, boundaries and set expectation out of every relationship. when they go unfulfilled, we hang on to the hurt than the good times.

I guess this could be a reason why tragic love stories make it to the top of the list.

Ashwini said...

"We look before and after
And pine for what is not
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught
Our sweetest songs tell of saddest thoughts"
Even Shelley agrees with you...I guess its human tendency to want to feel negative emotions so we can feel a bit like martyrs I guess...at a deep unconscious level ofcourse.