From: wa137@sdcc12.ucsd.edu (john e. clark)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: Falling in Love
Date: 6 Nov 92 00:18:00 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <13387@ecs.soton.ac.uk> sah@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Hellberg S.A.) writes:
+In <40293@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> wa137@sdcc12.ucsd.edu (john e. clark) writes:
+
+>Song of Soloman has more in common with Sappho and Lesbian lyric
+>poetry than a modern love story. S.S is in the form of a chorus, two
+
+Where on earth does it imply the 'two agents' are the same sex?  And I

Uh?? Obviously one who has never read Sappho, and so doesn't know
that she wrote about the bride and her husband as well as a woman
desiring another.

+think you'll find that rather than a chorus it is poetic in nature, if
+you want choruses try the Psalms.

Chorus was a feature of Greek drama in any representation found to
date. What a 'chorus' is, or was, is the 'population' participating
in the dramatic rite. The ancients would include the 'audience' in
the dramatic exposition. Later developments which we have from
written examples including classic greek drama, have the 'chorus'
acting as the 'audiance', offering explanations, support, or
chastizement of the 'actors'.

The Song of Solomon, follows this in the sense that there are only
two actors, Bride, Groom, and the 'daughters of Jerusalem' as chorus.

In one of Sappho's poems the bride is expecting her husband and the
chorus is chanting 'Hymen, Hymen...'. So the subject matter of Song
of Solomon never gets to the wedding night, merely stays in the
expectant present.

Originally, chorus was probably a 'dance' of the ritual, hence
choreography, but there was also spoken portions, as found in the
dramas, and possibly 'sung' to some 'tune' in some cases, but
basically a group of voices, hence the modern term 'chorus' for the
group singing. The whole thing returns to group singing and dancing
in 'A Chorus Line', but then that's life.

+
+> The dialogue does
+>not really indicate that catastrophic decent in to Hades and back
+>again, that the modern love romance has.
+
+I don't recall that it was cited as classic modern love ...

Falling in 'love' is in fact an alegory of many Greco-Roman
concepts, one of which is Orpheus who goes to haedes to rescue his
wife only to have her taken from him as they exit the netherworld.
He morns for his loss and is torn apart by the women of Thrace. His
head was tossed into a river and eventually landed, still singing,
on the island of Lesbos. Poetry being Lesbos' contribution has
somewhat of a rocky start it would seem, according to myth.

+
+What?!!!  How is romantic love portrayed here.  Sure the account of
+Paul on the road to Damascus is powerful, a display of God's power.

The discription of 'romantic' love, such as weakening of the knees,
rushing sound in the head, the general body destabilizing state,
which poets are far better at depicting is more present in Paul's
conversion, than in Song of Solomon's description of his beloved. In
that description there is barely a hint, if any of catastrophe,
which is ever present in the romantic writings from the 12th century
on, which was the beinging shot of this thread.

There are examples of such everywhere, but I feel that the west has
specialized the genre to a fine 'art' which other cultures have not done.
This is actually the 'thesis' of the criticism of the romantic ideal, that
it continues the mind set that the 'object' of love should be
'captured' and all other excluded. The older tales from 12th to 18th
centered around the 'legel' inability of the two lovers to actually
consumate the union, since in most cases they were already married
by duty to another. The 18th century to the present has seen the
replacement of the 'duty' union, with one that is based on
'romantic' attraciton, and hence was seen to remove the evils of
arrianged marriages. But simultaneously, the rise of individualism
precluded the union from being 'life' long, without a great amount
of 'de-individualizaion' on the part of the married couple.

+But hardly comparable to S of S.  Different style of literature, and
+written expressing very different things.  One is an adoration, the
+other a historical account!  Strange you should find the historical
+account as evoking more reaction!

Welcome to tragedy. Paul's 'adoration' of the god, and comunion with
him, is far more in keeping wiht romantic love than remote adoration
without emotion. 

+You really go overboard on selecting the bibles `love' stories!
+Shame it isn't a very balanced presentation.

But then we're talking about the bible aren't we...
-- 

John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edu