the nonhuman, whether animals, things, or ideas.
Pastoral works of poetry and fiction, for instance,
celebrate the relationships between farmers and
their animals or shepherds and their flocks, while
other narratives focus on the love between pets
and their owners, as in John Steinbeck’s The red
pony. Some of the most cherished children’s stories,
such as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, use love and
affection between animals to reflect on their human
equivalents. Love of money, maybe more accurately
described as an obsession, as well as of other tangible
things—from cars and clothes to places—frequently
plays pivotal thematic roles in life as in literary
works. The main character in Oscar Wilde’s The
picture oF dorian Gray is so enamored with the
idea of his youth and beauty that he debauches his
life in preserving them, as others have sacrificed
theirs for ideas and ideals such as nation, freedom,
and loyalty. Philosophy, it should be remembered,
literally means a love (philo) for or friend of knowl-
edge (sophia).
As a primary thrust or secondary incidental
occurrence in literature, however, it may be safe to
say that no theme is as ubiquitous and variously
treated as romantic love. For example, the theme
of courtly love, or passion between two members
of the nobility, began circulating in Europe as early
as the 11th century, and by the 19th century, it was
an object of ridicule in fiction in some circles. Still,
certain elements within the theme of romantic love
are constant and unchanging, as in its progressive
stages. First comes the discovery of one lover by the
other or both at once—hence the expression “love-
struck,” as when the war-injured Henry meets the
nurse Catherine in Ernest Hemingway’s a Fare-
weLL to arMs. The second stage is courtship, when
one potential partner attempts to woo or seduce the
other. Some of the best-known examples of this are
contained in the large corpus of chivalric poetry,
in which knights euphemistically persuade ladies
to accept their overtures, ostensibly without losing
their virginity or “virtue.” If the courtship is success-
ful on both ends, then the third stage is consumma-
tion; if it is unsuccessful, then there is rejection by
one or the other, or unrequited love. Thus, romantic
love as an emotion must be distinguished from love
as activity, just as love as a biochemical process must
be distinguished from love as thought.
The thematic process of romantic love is every-
where circumscribed by the identities of its partici-
pants and the cultures in which their escapades take
place. Forbidden love, sought after by participants
but scorned by others or the culture, is epitomized
by that between the title characters of William
Shakespeare’s roMeo and JuLiet as their meet-
ing, courtship, and tragic consummation take place
against the backdrop of their feuding families.
Racial, national, and class disparities between poten-
tial or actual lovers have proven to be considerable
cultural obstacles that they can or cannot overcome.
Pederasty, the love and mentorship of older men for
younger, was commonplace in ancient Athens but
would now be considered pedophilia. It is in this
context that the notion of platonic love, so named
after the philosopher Plato, came to be a spiritual
and intellectual union rather than physical, con-
sidered base within this paradigm. Love between
two people of the same sex, or homosexual love, is
depicted without hesitation in the fragments of the
ancient Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos, but its trials
and tribulations in more contemporary times are
made clear in Tony Kushner’s anGeLs in aMerica.
A final kind of love to be mentioned here is
that which is sometimes called “universal love,” an
acknowledgment of the value of all life and commit-
ment as being unconditionally benevolent. Religious
texts such as the Torah, Bible, and Quran equate
this kind of supreme love to that which the Deity
holds for believers and vice versa, and which enables
believers to love others in the same way. It is in these
senses that love is sometimes said to be blind (that is,
in overlooking the faults of others) or that individu-
als are instruments of an independent force of love,
not the other way around. But thinkers and writers
such as the Russian Leo Tolstoy and the American
Ralph Waldo Emerson have also described equiva-
lents to universal love that do not require religious
foundations, although they are free to have them. In
an allegorical sense, then, no matter which kind of
love a character or person experiences, it ultimately
brings him or her closer to, or makes them more a
part of, this ultimate theme of universal love.68 love