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
