Film, television, and publishing bear guilt as well. They are part of the unwitting conspiracy. Several typical scenarios can unfold. A man and a woman enter upon a courtship in which they either hate one
another at first or succumb to the stupidly predictable ‘love at first sight’ sequence of events. If they do not loathe each other (as frequently happens), a simple obstacle keeps them apart, one that can only be removed by a grand accident or a plan so complicated in its structure it inevitably collapses and leaves its author with no other choice but to confess plainly his or her feelings and thus win the hand of the in amorata.
Pure buncombe! Romance is so stylized and obvious that it can’t be mistaken for the emotions that move a human soul. Perhaps once fresh and touching, these story lines are now stale. The modern romantic is programmed to initiate and to react to predetermined signals and stimuli. If this sounds rigid and lacking in surprise, we have arrived at the heart of the problem as it exists today. As blatant as this result should seem to all of the participants involved in the dance, the outcome does not fail to produce the predictable response of tears, sighs, and an immediate reciprocation of prince charming’s romantic affections.
To show how far romance has come from Montaigne’s brilliant definition of it, an apercus of romance’s history is necessary.
At some point in the span of evolution, the brain, whether it be through its increased capacity, the number of its motor neurons, or the correct reaction of its multiple bio-chemicals secretions, produced a thing called romance.
For the more metaphysical of inclination, at some point the gods instilled man with a measure of their foibles and vastness to create a mortal replication of their romantic goals and desires. But since we are our gods, perhaps it is we who gave it to they, and we would do right to leave the origin of romance and love to the mystery of unknowing.
I admit I carry a westerner’s, egocentric bias. The eastern andsub-continental cultures of the planet possess their own interpretations and stories of romance, but I know them only in passing. However, from what I have gleaned of them their totems are perhaps more plausible than ours. It is precisely because they have remained circumscribed or sequestered, and untarnished, that they are the most fresh and aerie light. However, I can not discourse on them in depth without doing a disservice to the uniqueness of these cultures and revealing my own ignorance- which I would gladly do to bring the truth forward.
I must proceed from what I know and observe, and since I am of the West and it is the West that has birthed the Janus-faced modern romantic, it is of our culture that I must write. The first romance is (the first of many things) the epic verse of Homer. The Gilgamesh may be older, but it did not undergird Western culture and thought. It is Homer and his tales that we revere most in the West. Men dying for a face. Men spending years abroad for hair and hips and breasts and sweet breath. Men taking years to return home. Men under assault from gods, demi-gods, beasts, and elements.
After Egypt and Greece came Rome. The Romans were imitators, but more pronounced than their powers of mimicry was their talent for practicality. Their dynasty, due to their common sense mastery of the western world, could never mirror to the same extent the romance of ancient Greece. Of all the Roman poets and sages, Virgil comes closest to being truly romantic, but the Aenead smacks too much of praise for the glory of Rome (and relies too much on the reputation of Greece and defeated Troy) to stand out as a true original and standard bearer for a “romantic” Rome.
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See Also:
Bach And Bush Flowers
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PMS
Mentally Disabled Children
The Elixir Of Life