Written Assignment 1 - Summary
Summary of ”Love has become romance”
It seems that in the last 250 years we human have become more romantic when speaking of the matter of love. We now a days’ marry because we are in love, where as in the 16th - 17th century we married for practical and economical reasons. It wasn’t until the end of the 17th century that people began connecting love and romance as two things going hand in hand. And it wasn’t until just 200 years ago that love was seen as a necessary matter for marrying, it was now all about finding the one and only that you wanted to spend the rest of your days with, instead of marrying for social and practical schemes and for continuation of the family.
Until the beginning of the 18th century it was normal for the parents to marry away their children. The father of the bride would usually go to the farm, where the groom lived with his parents, and check out that everything went on as supposed. He would also check the health of the parents, for good genes, before he would let his daughter marry. Romance, therefore, didn’t play an important role at this time. The link between love and infatuation arose in “romantic love”.
Later, artists, writers and intellectuals reflected the new relations of love in their work. They began expressing love in a new passionate way, in novels and paintings. And the earlier ”sensible” known love, was now presented very negatively. People now thought that one couldn’t live fully, unless they’d experienced being wildly in love, which later became marriage, and would keep flourishing till death would do apart.
They present an example in the article, which explains how some people actually die for love. The example is a book from Johan Wolfgang Von Goethes “Darkness visible” from 1775. The story is about a young man, Werther, who’s passionately in love with a woman, Lotte. But since