The Problem With Romance As We Know It

The problem with romance as we know it is that it is built around figures like Jane Austen and John Keats. Both brilliant writers, genius really and deserving of our devotion to their work, but neither lived up to their position as romantic icons. John Keats two-timed Fanny Brawne who roamed the hills draped in black mourning him far longer than she knew him. The man she loved so dearly wrote the first draft of Bright Star, his most famous gift to Fanny, about Isabella Jones. One of the most beautiful love poems in history is little more than recycled words. Now for Austen, the mother of the modern romantic expectation - for ladies aren't you all looking for your Darcy?  Well, as gifted as she was, Austen had little experience. A brief, chaste flirtation with Tom Lefroy and a day long engagement to a man she could never love are the only romantic credits to Austen's life. Though they write beautiful words, who are these figures to decide for future generations what love and romance should look, sound and feel like? These are the figures that we have given the highest authority over love, but what did they really know? They are idealists who never attained their romantic goals. Their love went unrequited, though not unreciprocated. Are we doomed to fail under this idealized form of love? I believe that it encourages the hopelessness of the hopeless romantic. We put so much effort and attention to the yearning and struggling. We place great respect on the act of pining away sickened with our overflow of emotion. But where does this get us? Surely heartbreak is the only place this type of love can lead. If the grand gestures and desperate cries of the lovelorn are what we aspire to we will never reach satisfaction. That is the problem with romance as we know it. Romance doesn't need to be so grand. It doesn't need to be so tortured. Romance can live in all of the tiny moments that we so often take for granted. A great love story is really, when you think about it, in the telling. It's in the minute details and flourishes. Then again what do I know? I'm no better than Keats or Austen. I'm just a once-loved girl who gave up a contentedly-ever-after story. An insomniac piecing together how we all came to know about love. My conclusion is that we would be much happier if we stopped worshipping the torture of it all, being unnecessarily tortured does not make us any greater.   Love doesn't need to be quite so tragic. Love can be simple and it can be kind. It may not make for good drama but it makes for good lives. That's what I want my romance to be, a free and happy life.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone