When tkinking about the word "love", probably most of us will, at first, come up with a picture of a heart -not a biological one, of course- or maybe something sweet related to companionship/happiness. Some others will have less positive thoughts, but I bet that just very few people will think about what happens when love is not a good thing anymore, when it crosses the limits and becomes something unwanted. Sadly, even when two people love each other, there is always someone who loves the most.
In King Lear, we can see that love is what triggers the tragedy. Not only the love that the King feels towards his daughters, but also his self love. Even though he had it all (he was the King) he placed vanity over the prosperity of his kingdom and he also placed hollow compliments over true love. What Lear did not understand at that moment was that love is so complex than just a bunch of words will never able to define it, let alone to express it completely. Each person has unique way of showing love. Cordelia's was silence.
Cordelia: (aside) What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
Through this I'm not saying that self love is bad, I just say that it shouldn't prevent us from noticing other true demonstrations of love, so that it can be kept as something positive as much as possible. Do you think it is possible to learn this important lesson without much suffering?
References:
Shakespeare, William; King Lear (1606)
http://www.libraryofbirmingham.com/article/shakespeareandlove/shakespeareandlove
Well, I would say that loving in excess -or doing whatever in excess --is always a bad idea.
ResponderEliminarWhen Mr. Villa was talking about this topic last Monday, I recalled what he has been saying throughout the whole semester: "When you fall in love, you lose your identity." I think that this is about that, when you love too much, you mirror yourself in that other person which, in the end, leads to conflict. There is no privacy and no identity of one's own, and the one who loves more -as you put it --overwhelms and suffocates to other person. Therefore, love becomes destructive and painful for both people.
Such is the situation Ophelia went through when her father asked her how much did she love him... she reacted the opposite way because she had a different, let's say, methodology to love. That is to say, she was convinced that love is not about words, but of silence. As a consequence, this brought about disaster.
I hope this comment complements the way you think of this conflict in King Lear
Regards!
At the beginning of your entry you mention the following: “but I bet that just very few people will think about what happens when love is not a good thing anymore, when it crosses the limits and becomes something unwanted.” Well, that gets me to a hypothesis… can we still call it love when it turns into something harming, hurtful, undesirable? If we still do it, I think that we shouldn’t believe that love is only a good think. Instead, We should start thinking love as a whole; I mean, as something complete, something that has two sides, a bad and a good thing, something that makes us live and die at the same time. Something that gives us the possibility of becoming a better person or showing our worst side…like ying-yang, What do you think?? See you then
ResponderEliminarWhen loves becomes an obsession, it clearly becomes a bad thing because you start blending your thoughts, picturing yourself with another person.
ResponderEliminarI agree when Constanza says loving in excess may be a bad thing, but is love the feeling we are addressing? there are several things that we cannot decode in a life-time, for instance the nature of love. In this sense, what we think it's called love leads to tragedy but, isn't love a tragedy? when people 'love' they lose themselves because they blend their identity with the other person's. They idealize and live around others' actions. In king Liar, the King expected her daughters to satisfy those ideals, but his identity burst into pieces when he realized that 'love' made him lose everything he had.