Rilke, quintessential poet of love, and The History of Romantic Love. Yeah... that's the ticket.!

February 14, 2003 11:07 AM

A post about Rilke and Romantic Love, the gift to the Western World from The Ornament of The World, al-Andalus, the high civilization of Muslim Spain, via the troubadors, who gave us this Arabian meme as the noble concept of Courtly Love, with additional reference to Denis de Rougement's Love In The Western World, The Art Of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus and Abû Muhammad 'Alee ibn Ahmad ibn Sa'eed ibn Hazm's Tawq al-Hamâmah (The Ring of the Dove). So, there you have it: Rilke, quintessential poet of love, and The History of Romantic Love. Yeah... that's the ticket.!
posted by y2karl (35 comments total)

You, you only, exist.
We pass away, till at last,
our passing is so immense
that you arise: beautiful moment,
in all your suddenness,
arising in love, or enchanted
in the contraction of work.

To you I belong, however time may
wear me away. From you to you
I go commanded. In between
the garland is hanging in chance; but if you
take it up and up and up: look:
all becomes festival!

From The Rainier Maria Rilke Archive - An anthology of poetry and quotations.

Two more Rilke links worth noting are Cliff Crego's Picture/Poems:
The Rilke Archive and The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.

From the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy's Islamic Philosophy, here is a biographical page on Ibn Hazm. Here, courtesy of "Born Eunuchs" Home Page and Library (Now, there's a fascinating, elaborate and well researched topic), here are some selected chapters from The Ring Of The Dove, including The signs of love, Chapter 7: Those who fall in love with (on account of) a quality, and afterwards do not like (approve) another, differing from it, Chapter 14: Submissiveness and Chapter 20: Union. Also there is Chapter 6: On the Species of Love from Ibn Hazm's On Character and Conduct.

The fascinating Islamic Psychology Online has on it's General page, On the Nature of Love, Signs of Love and Morals and Behavior, all translations of Ibn Hazm.

For further background here is the Culture of Muslim Spain.

As for the troubadours, here from WBAI 99.5 FM , Pacifica Radio in New York, the Here Of A Sunday Morning website's Troubadours, Trouvères and Minnesingers. From Infoplease, here is Troubadours.

Obsessive Love by Hakim Bey touches upon both The Ring Of The Dove and troubadours, too.

Here is more on Andreas Capellanus and The Art of Courtly Love. And here is The Code of Chivalry and Courtly Love.

But, Wait, There's More!
posted by y2karl at 11:08 AM on February 14, 2003

As for De Rougement, there are no direct quotations from Love In The Western World, so here for your infotainment are a bunch of quotes I Googled about Love In The Western World with the sources. Enjoy.

French social critic Denis de Rougemont argued the impossibility of uniting marriage with love decades ago in his book Love in the Western World. De Rougemont would agree with Lipnis that the idea that we must love each other passionately all our lives is simply outrageous. He declared the idea of romantic love was the greatest curse on western civilization that would doom the institution of marriage - one he dearly cherished as a good old conservative. But unlike Lipnis, de Rougement believed that love in marriage was entirely possible. The problem, he wrote, is that we in the West recognize the existence of only one type of love, the variety based on absence. Love is experienced solely as trying to attain or maintain the object of our affections. In order to feel love, we must either be separated or face the threat of loss - something that marriage kills quite effectively since it requires the pledge to remain constant and very present. It makes sense then that since we do not know how to "love the one we're with," we slide into domesticity as an easy substitute. Duty may be less pleasant than desire, but it is not as erratic or complicated in the long run. And perhaps we call it love to hide our uncertainties both about ourselves and one another.

from The Tyranny of Domesticity by Lakshmi Chaudhry in AlterNet: The Domesticity Wars By Vivian Dent and Lakshmi Chaudhry

A case can be made--a case has been made many times, most notably by Denis de Rougemont and Indries Shah--that the notion of romance in the Western world can be traced back to Arabic poetry, especially Sufi poetry. In back of that in turn were various early schools of dualistic thought, Persian, Indian, also pre-Islamic in the Arab world, These were philosophical constructs which used human love as a metaphor for the yearning for wisdom, or even union with God. A bedouin yearning for his gazelle-like lady is actually a soul yearning for reality, etc. These themes were picked up by the Troubadours, carried into the courtly romances--but still with an understanding of the coded nature of the story line. Then through the centuries we lost the allegorical understanding. In the 20th century people have come to relationships, marriage, toting all this metaphysical baggage but not realizing that the bags are empty. The result is frustration, a feeling of failing short, of being ripped off.

That's from The Context of Romance - An Interview with Michael Brondoli in Gargoyle, issue #15.

Madame Bovary is also at the centre of any discussion of literary descriptions of adultery. Denis de Rougemont, in his book, Love in the Western World, observed that 'to judge by literature, adultery would seem to be one of the most remarkable occupations in both Europe and America'. He discussed the great lovers of mediaeval Romance - Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseult - and pointed out that the difficulty and unlawfulness of their love is part of the essence of their passion. Marriage is so to speak the social and normal framework of the human story - adultery is the great act of individual self-assertion and longing. In terms of mediaeval Romance which takes place in a world of dynastic marriages and chivalric devotion, such transgressions are doomed and glorious. In terms of bourgeois monogamous society they are different.

From Scenes from a provincial life by AS Byatt, The Guardian Saturday July 27, 2002

Denis de Rougemont's Love in the Western World (1983: 75-82, 102-107, 331-348, 352-362) argues, for example, that Zoroastrian Manicheanism and Arab Sufi mystical poetry influenced Catharist dualism and the courtly love songs of the troubadours. The cultivation of the idea of passionate love between a knight and a married lady is viewed by de Rougemont as a reaction to medieval orthodoxy in Roman Catholicism. All the ardour that had been directed to Heaven was now shifted to the love object. The love of a lady was viewed as the source of salvation here on earth, even if that love were not requited. Thus, for example, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine, wrote love songs which were based on ecclesiastical forms (the conductus) and Arabic forms (the zadjal). The themes of romantic love which twelfth century troubadours sang about in France can be heard, in greatly modified form, on the radio in every industrialized country today. The major modification made since the twelfth century is, of course, the notion that passionate love can result in long-term, stable marriage or partnership.

from a footnote to The Life World, Grief and Individual Uniqueness: 'Social Definition' in Dilthey, Windelband, Rickert, Weber, Simmel and Schutz by J. I. (Hans) Bakker.

Once we recognize as much, we may not be in a position simply to shake off the spell of romantic love. It is far too potent a magic for that. But at least we are in a position to assess its narrative in Christian terms and begin concocting an antidote. Then we are poised to remember that it is only since the Middle Ages that romantic love has been prized as an ideal, the sine qua non for marriage and the fully vital human life. Marriage in history has more typically been arranged between families than chosen merely by a man and a woman "in love." In fact, in most of Western history the sweeping intensity, confusion, and absorption of what we have come to know as romantic love was considered a misfortune. Friendship was the higher love.

The roots of romantic love lie in heresy. Denis de Rougemont traces it back to the Cathari, who emerged in twelfth-century Germany. True to their name (which means "pure ones'), the Cathari were obsessed with evil and believed its origins were found in physical matter. Accordingly, they prohibited sexual intercourse even within marriage. Certain of the Cathari's themes were picked up by twelfth-century court bands. From there they made their way into written verse romances, and finally on into modern romantic literature. Perhaps the tidiest way to lay out the narrative is to recount the story of Tristan and Iseult, memorialized in so many medieval poems and songs.
In the tale Tristan, an orphan, becomes the adopted son of King Mark (in some accounts he is the nephew of the king). Early on he proves to be a fine warrior. With this attribute in mind, the king sends Tristan to fetch his bride-to-be, Iseult, from Ireland to Mark's realm of Cornwall. Returning from Ireland, Tristan and Iseult drink the love potion intended for her and King Mark. They fall in love and succumb to temptation. Yet both attempt to remain loyal to the king, so Iseult is delivered to Mark. 'Tristan and Iseult's duplicitous sexual adventures continue in the castle until the couple flees to the forest of Morrois, to live for three years in the hardship of poverty. Then the couple repents and Iseult returns to Mark. But Tristan and Iseult soon enough plot reunion. Before they are reunited and manage to manifest their love in its fullness, both die.

Once the core narrative is exposed even in such sketchy detail, several enduring dynamics of supposedly natural romantic love rise into view. True love is something that falls on people, like a spell. The couple on which it falls is special, admirable at least from outside the social circles where their love wreaks havoc, and yet the couple is tragically ill-fated. To the limited extent romantic love can be realized, it is realized fitfully and fleetingly, clandestinely, in poverty, and in opposition to society. Quintessential love is understood as unsatisfied yearning, as desire exquisitely deprived. It cannot end in consummation or steady, unfolding fulfillment, but only in death. According to the myth of romantic love, true love is too good for this sordid world.

from Why Christians Have Lousy Sex Lives by Rodney Clapp

When we think in these terms, we can begin to see the limitations of what Denis de Rougemont postulated over fifty years ago in his seminal work, Love in the Western World. He maintains that in the West the experience of 'falling in love' has always been closely associated with thwarted or prohibited kinds of love, and that lovers want, even crave, these tremendous obstacles. They don't really love each other, he says; they merely derive pleasure in being kept apart and only feel happiness when they are pining for the impossible. To give de Rougemont his due, it is undeniable that in many works of great literature love is represented as something obstructed or impossible (Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Goethe, and others come to mind), yet the explanation for this most probably is that when there is no great obstacle or impediment to overcome there can be no 'collective movement of two and only two people', and so no falling in love. In other words, without some new, felt difference and without an obstacle to obstruct things, there is no need to establish another 'system of difference and exchange'; there is no need to create 'a new institution' (which people perceive when the new couple becomes "established" and recognized.) In the world of fiction, this sort of obstacle represents a literary device, one used to construct a love story endowed with meaning. Literature, therefore, intrinsically generates imaginary obstacles: the warring families in Shakespeare, Iseult's marriage in Wagner's Ring, the birth of the child in Goethe's Elective Affinities, Beatrice's death in Dante, and so on.

--from Chapter 3 of Falling In Love by the eminent Italian Sociologist and maven of love Francesco Albertoni.

And from Crackpot Authorities by Mark Wallace in Salon, here is

The case of French theologian Denis de Rougemont, who, in 1938, answered just about every question you'd care to ask on the nature of romance, is more complex. The thesis of de Rougemont's "Love in the Western World" is sound (sort of), but it's in his singular explication of the myths and conflicts that have fed the modern conception of love -- "formal" love ended with World War I, he asserts -- that he ascends to the crackpot stratosphere.
What Western culture has inculcated in us, from the Tristan and Iseult legend through "Runaway Bride," is that love is not worth having without passion, de Rougemont writes. And since marriage is not worth having without love, we are stuck searching for the "passionate marriage" -- a condition known everywhere to be exceedingly rare.
Though less than optimistic, D. de R., as he signs himself, offers an eye-opening opinion as to just what we in the West should expect from romance. His book begins with a 12th century heretical sect in France whose desire to be united with God -- a unity possible only in death, if then -- gave birth to the idea of "passion" as distinct from "love." In good crackpot-authority style, de Rougemont goes on to delve deeply into the arts, borrowing from Petrarch, the Marquis de Sade and Wagner to make his case, and even managing to conflate D.H. Lawrence and Hitler along the way.
Though it's a pleasure to follow him through nine centuries of literature, war and trysting -- right down to our penchant for "the slim lines of the open-air girl" -- it is hard to fully credit de Rougemont's contention that our desire for both heated passion and sublime love is really a death wish that is fallout from the Albigensian Heresy. On the other hand, if it's true, as de R. seems to argue, that we subconsciously want marriage to lead to our deaths, that might help explain the high divorce rate. The solution? Disentangle passion from the idea of love and marriage, and lower your expectations, de Rougemont says. But before you do, enjoy his book.

And for that blog connection, may I point out the H. D. Miller's Travelling Shoes manages to mention Ibn Hazm and De Rougemont in the same entry. Folks, we have a winner!
posted by y2karl at 11:09 AM on February 14, 2003

Alright, I give, that's one impressive uber-post.
posted by Stan Chin at 11:14 AM on February 14, 2003

"Alright, I give, that's one impressive uber-post. "

It's a fucking egotistical waste of monitor ink, that's what it is.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:16 AM on February 14, 2003

MetaFilter.
posted by Skot at 11:19 AM on February 14, 2003

I *heart* you guys. Really.

*goes back to composing a two-page front-page flameout*
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:22 AM on February 14, 2003

Oh. My. Word.
Here's a post I will never ever read.
posted by rhapsodie at 11:27 AM on February 14, 2003

It's intimidating, that's for sure. At least check out Capellanus.. the rules of courtly love are exceedingly bizarre, even sadistic, to my modern sensibilities at least.
posted by Hildago at 11:29 AM on February 14, 2003

Wow. impressive post, Y2Karl. It was so dense that I mistakenly read 'courtly love' as 'courtney love more than once. Ouch!'

However, despite that I've already learned quite a bit from the post. I'd suggest y'all take a few moments out of your scheduled ADD paroxysm and FOCUS, damnit! You might learn sumthin 'bout Love. Or at least Iberia.
posted by daver at 11:35 AM on February 14, 2003

Note: Courtney Love link above is Not Safe For Work, should have noted in post. Sorry!
posted by daver at 11:36 AM on February 14, 2003

I'd suggest y'all take a few moments out of your scheduled ADD paroxysm and FOCUS, damnit! You might learn sumthin 'bout Love. Or at least Iberia.

And if I read every page that anyone could find about hoof-and-mouth disease, I'd learn something, too.
posted by anapestic at 11:39 AM on February 14, 2003

Well, it was a Valentines Day present. Really. The poem, I guess, makes for the length.

If I could do it over and leave more inside, I would...

It didn't seem that much longer than this or this. I read fast, so it doesn't seem that arduous to me.

I guess my policy is not to dumb it down--ever.

You might consider that a sign of respect, you know, and not some horrible crime deserving your hurried wrath. It's not like I go to all the trouble to provide a urinal for the easily annoyed.
posted by y2karl at 11:44 AM on February 14, 2003

never mind, just popped over to metatalk...
posted by stifford at 11:45 AM on February 14, 2003

It's a good post, y2karl, though I of course have not read all of it yet. I come to metafilter for thorough, well-researched posts about things I don't know much about (ahh, l'amore), so this is good. If people come expecting a single link to the front page of CNN.com, I can see how they'd be put off.
posted by Hildago at 11:51 AM on February 14, 2003

y2karl: Thanks for what I consider a great post. Timely, informative, well-researched. Such a huge body of work out there, I consider your post to be a valuable job of filtering.

Just the kind of thing I come to MeFi looking for.
posted by buzzv at 11:56 AM on February 14, 2003

y2karl, I tend to appreciate your posts as rich and diverse. What I don't appreciate is having to close multiple error boxes just to read MetaFilter. At least now, I only get them IN this thread. I think we can all agree that breaking MetaFilter is a BAD idea?
posted by Wulfgar! at 11:57 AM on February 14, 2003

I humbly bow to y2karl. And I'm gonna sit here and read the whole dang thing, and enjoy every word. Thanks.
posted by jokeefe at 12:02 PM on February 14, 2003

Ack! Um, I'm not quite done reading it (it might take days), but I want to add a couple related items of literature:

1 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

2 - Marie de France

Very admirable post y2karl.
posted by valval22 at 12:16 PM on February 14, 2003

Thanks, valva22. I cut a lot out of the post and other than quotes, my part was pretty minimal.

One thing I omitted because of the length and subject was Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love by Dorothy Tennov, which concerns the science of romantic love. Here are some excerpts. Here's more on the topic. Stephenie has more to say on the topic, on her page, and a fair amount of linkage as well. Oh, the charms of Google...
posted by y2karl at 12:59 PM on February 14, 2003 [1 favorite]

Too many links lacking a well-argued central motif. As David Lynch sometimes says, it's too much of a good thing, y2karl.
Much like everything else, the western concept of love comes from the Old Testament and the Greek (Plato) above all.
Rilke, quintessential poet of love
Questionable.
"The Allegory of Love" by C. S. Lewis and parts of Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis" give a good overview on the subject of love and individuality.

ps: you need an editor
posted by 111 at 1:05 PM on February 14, 2003

Color me dubious.
posted by y2karl at 1:17 PM on February 14, 2003

About your random laundry list of contentions, that is... Still smarting about that newbie crack?

After this post, it's a bit much for you to criticize anyone for using a "random laundry list." Anybody can do a google search and write endlessly about what he finds.

Apparently, it's now:

MetaFilter: Quantity, not quality!
posted by anapestic at 1:35 PM on February 14, 2003

y2karl... I think this is the first MeFi post I've actually bookmarked.

Well done, sir. Well done.
posted by silusGROK at 1:35 PM on February 14, 2003

y2karl, why don't you simply contradict what I said? Piling up information is easy and can have an effect over the naive and the middlebrow, but this is the Internet, so not everybody will be equally impressed.
Just so that you lose your persecutory feelings about smarting newbies etc etc, let me say this: ykarl is the author of what I consider the very best and most original MeFi post ever, among many other unforgettable contributions to this site.
posted by 111 at 1:46 PM on February 14, 2003

This link to the Rainer Marie Rilke Archives works better for me than y2k's.
posted by goethean at 2:02 PM on February 14, 2003

y2karl, you're derailing your own thread with your ridiculous preening. If you want to continue the conversation about all the ways in which you're going to save us from own ignorance, can you do it MetaTalk please?
posted by MarkAnd at 2:11 PM on February 14, 2003

I guess my policy is not to dumb it down--ever.
You might consider that a sign of respect
If I could do it over and leave more inside, I would...


I appreciate that, and I enjoy what I've managed to go through of the post, but I do find it interesting that you're idea of "not to dumb it down" is to pick out what we should find important in each of the links. Can't I do that for myself with my own brain and all and thus save a few innocent bytes from needless slaughter? I like the stuff, I do, but I think I can read it and decide what I think is important (I'm really referring to the after posts more than the FPP in its present form). Thank you for posting interesting stuff again though!
posted by Pollomacho at 2:13 PM on February 14, 2003

I would like to reiterate my approval of the post, I see that this post seems to be attacked on all fronts and I really don't want to be another nay-sayer, sorry. Karl, thanks.
posted by Pollomacho at 2:20 PM on February 14, 2003

Courtly Love? That boat has so left. Charles Bukowski is one of the few that got it right!

The Great Slob (from "Septuagenarian Stew" 1994)

I was always a natural slob
I liked to lay upon the bed
in undershirt (stained, of
course) (and with cigarette
holes)
shoes off
beerbottle in hand
trying to shake off a
difficult night, say with a
woman still around
walking the floor
complaining about this and
that,
and I'd work up a
belch and say, "HEY, YOU DON'T
LIKE IT? THEN GET YOUR ASS
OUT OF HERE!"

I really loved myself, I
really loved my slob-
self, and
they seemed to also:
always leaving
but almost
always
coming
back.
posted by JohnR at 2:48 PM on February 14, 2003

Karl, I really REALLY believe that you've crossed the line into feeding your own ego. Yes, the post is a goodly thing ... except that most won't even get through half the links. If you feel that you're aiding MetaFilter in its goals, great. But it looks from this side like you're screaming to be noticed, rather than presenting the cool, interesting and unusual. I've said it before ... pace yourself. Think of it this way, if you wish, that presenting a few links in an interesting fashion is more challenging to your abilities than to scattergun the entire search list of Google in one full post. It might be appropriate to spend as much time thinking about why you're doing it as you do about how you're doing it.

And seriously, Happy Valentine's day. Thank you for the attempt.
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:51 PM on February 14, 2003

D. de R. »? :DDR; there you have it. dance!
posted by kliuless at 3:18 PM on February 14, 2003

I'd read both Love In The Western World and The Dove's Necklace.... once upon a time. It was just that I never found that much about either one online until last night--so I got carried away.

I think Hans Bakker catches the gist of LITWW with this--

True love is something that falls on people, like a spell. The couple on which it falls is special, admirable at least from outside the social circles where their love wreaks havoc, and yet the couple is tragically ill-fated. To the limited extent romantic love can be realized, it is realized fitfully and fleetingly, clandestinely, in poverty, and in opposition to society. Quintessential love is understood as unsatisfied yearning, as desire exquisitely deprived. It cannot end in consummation or steady, unfolding fulfillment, but only in death. According to the myth of romantic love, true love is too good for this sordid world. Even if the paper that footnoted was incomprehensilbe to me.

As does Albertoni with

He maintains that in the West the experience of 'falling in love' has always been closely associated with thwarted or prohibited kinds of love, and that lovers want, even crave, these tremendous obstacles. They don't really love each other, he says; they merely derive pleasure in being kept apart and only feel happiness when they are pining for the impossible.

De Rougemont points that, in the central myth, Tristan and Iseult drink a love potion intended for King Mark's and Iseult's wedding, by mistake--they are responsible for their actions or state. He thinks that's a big part of the myth.

He also had a laundry list of what signifies true love and the one that leapt out at me was There must be an injured third party. If you look at anything from Romeo and Juliet to West Side Story, that one pops up.

Ibn Hazm was the first person to write about Romantic Love as we understand it in the modern sense--a little fact I wanted to point out in light of current events and warblogger pontifications. I think that the Symposium, for instance, is closer to the sense of

In fact, in most of Western history the sweeping intensity, confusion, and absorption of what we have come to know as romantic love was considered a misfortune.

Also, since the ideal love in the Symposium was a beardless boy, well, you know they're talking about something else. Check out Born Eunuchs line on that one--now that is an interesting site.

There are many traditional cultures in the world that recognize romantic love as a naturally occurring emotional state that is something dangerous, a form of mental illness.

I think that that the argument that we have inherited a creation of medieval troubadours who had contact with Arabs and Arabian literature, and hence Sufi mystical poetry about union with the Divine framed in terms of sexual passion, and created something called Courtly Love is not that all random but quite logically embedded in all the quotes above.

Somewhere in the above I remember a line about the reason people in ancient Greece referred to myths was because they were talking in code about something that was no longer considered appropriate for open discussion, but which could be hinted at as long as everyone knew the stories. For us now, it's not even a matter of myths but total amnesia, because we don't know the stories anymore.

And yet this forgotten unexamined archetype sells all the CDs, clothes, cars and mouthwash in the world. Ironic, no?

Like I said, I hadn't found most of the links on LITWW and Ibn Hazm until last night and hated to waste them. I got carried away but, really, I picked every link for what it said. It all coheres, it all makes sense to me. What can I say?
posted by y2karl at 3:28 PM on February 14, 2003

y2karl, a friendly word of advice: I love the post (as I do almost all of yours), I even love the much-remarked-upon scrollovers, but this comment is just discouraging in its length. You don't need to give the links and the quotes; it's fine putting a salient and appetizing quote in scrollover for those who like it, but a mile-long comment with lengthy quotes from each link is (in my opinion) a bridge too far.
posted by languagehat at 3:46 PM on February 14, 2003

You do have a point there. But I was worried people would take the links as random when they were linked by a common submerged theme. Oh, well, it's an experiment half the time for me...
posted by y2karl at 4:01 PM on February 14, 2003

Loverly stuff, y2karl. Always happy to see some mention of Rilke, who said:

"Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further."

As for the drab naysayers above and in MetaTalk, I'm reminded that I used to think noone actually chose to eat boiled potatoes each and every evening of one's life. I'm reminded of the words of another of my own favorite poets, the brilliant and eccentric T.S. Mutilate, who wrote:

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow minds
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

~wink~
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 4:57 PM on February 14, 2003