Are alphas born?

by Andrea Elizabeth

My new thought on western romanticism, mostly born out here in posts on C.S. Lewis’s Allegory of Love, where it is claimed that courtly love began around 1100 a.d. (which seems timely with the schism between east and west, imo), is that it is very tied to alpha male and alpha female ism. I believe most people identify with lead characters in stories of dashing heroes who save beautiful princesses. Even if we do not believe ourselves to be as dashing and beautiful as the people in the stories, we probably hoped that we would be when we were children, and that hope may still be unhappily buried throughout life. I am thinking that this may be a western phenomenon.

In western chivalry, all spoils go to the victor who rules over the kingdom, from where he selects the most worthy lady to co-rule with him. Those who lose in this struggle either die or become meaningless servants, valued for their tributes only. Thus the appeal of western romanticism is to identify yourself as the victorious, special male or worthy, special female, even vicariously. I’m also thinking this plays into the American dream of individual home ownership. “A man’s home is his castle.” There’s really no room for equal community in this scheme. Even supporting American laborers are allowed some measure of this individual alpha identification after hours.

From what little I know of Russia and Russians, where Eastern Orthodoxy has been most largely played out, I do not get the same sense of order. It seems that things were mostly a free for all, even though strong men and women held sway. But it was not because they were the most romantically worthy. They best not go to sleep because anyone could take back from them at any time. Individual conquering men do not seem to have been held in the same savior role. Individually strong characteristics may push harder than others, but I don’t think the whole person was glorified in the same way.

This difference may affect how the east views spiritual fathers and elders. A western convert, or even a western influenced cradle Eastern Orthodox, may bring in the western romantic idea of a spiritual father being their alpha savior to whom they can pledge allegiance, and perhaps through whom they can become the alpha queen equivalent (don’t get too literal about gender here) in their own realm. This idea may need adjustment.

I believe the proper view of a spiritual father is that they can guide one on the path to becoming united to Christ through passing along the three fold path of salvation: purgation, illumination, and theosis. He is a guide who serves, not a romantic savior. I think this confusion also influences how we view veneration of the Saints. To view them as chivalric saviors is idolatry. To see them as guides to the proper worship in and belief about God is to see them as helpers. They should also identify with us as equally created fellow humans, not as special alpha people.

I think this unhealthy romanticism also influences how people, especially women and perhaps some men, see mentoring in general. It should not be about the personal association with an alpha male, it should be about guidance in the truth of how to be with God.

Deerslayer pt 1

by Andrea Elizabeth

We were able to finish the first half of The Deerslayer in the car yesterday. I am enjoying Cooper’s philosophical approach to race issues, which is learned through conversation between people with various points of view. It is also very nice to hear him describe the American landscape before it was all cut down. His description of mental infirmity seems pretty insightful too. Yet there is the English tendency to compartmentalize and categorize everything. Before modernism, people though they could gain complete understanding by enough study. While this seems arrogant to us now, I think it is right to take a stand on things. Bullying others into assuming that same stance is another issue. Burying it in a good story is more polite.

Musical accompaniment to the delimma below

by Andrea Elizabeth

Handel’s “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”

Part 2

Discernment Delimma after reading Chaucer’s “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”

by Andrea Elizabeth

I would use a Pithless graph, but I can’t figure out how to draw on here. Picture four circles that overlap across and down, but not diagonally. Top left, Pleasure. Top right, Construction. Bottom left, Destruction. Bottom right, Pain. Where Pleasure and Construction overlap, Heaven or Prelest. Where Pleasure and Destruction overlap, Temptation. Where Destruction and Pain overlap, Hell or Prelest. Where Construction and Pain overlap, The Bitter Pill.

 

English chivalry

by Andrea Elizabeth

Another thought about women in dire circumstances and evil men: there was a point in the middle of A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott where I think she acted according to choice instead of circumstance as she had in the rest of the book. It was the  moment that Dostoevsky describes in Crime and Punishment where Sophia admits that something in her willingly chose the horrible lifestyle. She was not a total victim of her circumstances. Rosamond does not seem to have this realization. She feels worthy of defense throughout the book.  In another place she is thankful that women get this just defense only in England.

Also surprising is that in Don Quixote, the standard for chivalry in Spain is drawn from England’s tales of King Arthur.

A Long Fatal Love Chase

by Andrea Elizabeth

is the title of Louisa May Alcott’s originally unpublished novel that was discovered and published in 1995. It was rejected for being unsuitable at the time it was written in 1866, two years before she wrote Little Women. It’s tone is a little rough and meant to shock, but I believe it effectively warns girls against recklessness. If I had read it back in the day, I probably would have dreaded my future, but not altered my course as I did and didn’t after I read of Natasha’s fate in War and Peace. Novels describe, but do they change?

The characters are very complex and well conceived (what is it about the 1860′s?).  Rosamond both matures and bears the imprints of her harrowing journey as she goes along. Tempest, though presented as evil incarnate, also has a soft side, which is confusing. Is it woman’s fancy that evil men have a soft side? I don’t know. Maybe they are just faking it.

15 authors

by Andrea Elizabeth

Macrina of A Vow of Conversation has cordially tagged me in this 15 Authors meme.

Fifteen authors (poets included) who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what authors my friends choose.”

I enjoyed reading hers so I’ll contribute mine.

Rudyard Kipling – I hope I’m not being too repetitive in relating how as a 4 or 5 year old child I would repetitiously listen to a record of Sterling Holloway (Winnie the Pooh’s voice) reading “The Elephant’s Child”. This story probably explains my “‘satiable curtiosity” and the lickings I’ve taken for it.

C.S. Lewis – My fourth grade teacher’s reading of the Chronicles of Narnia after lunch will remain one of my favorite memories. Is the enchanted world beyond that far away?

Jane Austen – At around 12 years old I graduated from my beloved horse stories to more intricate expressions of human emotion with Pride and Prejudice.

Daphne du Maurier – Her expressions are a little more modern. Rebecca is the most famous, but I also enjoyed her more retro My Cousin Rachel. Hey those are my two daughters’ names, but I had the Bible Saints in mind.

Major Ian Thomas – I believe I read If I Perish, I Perish about Queen Esther, but that’s not the main reason I mention him here. Though I’d asked Jesus in my heart at around 4 years of age, it was when I was 15 at Major Thomas’ Torchbearer’s His Hill Ranch Camp that I would say I had a conversion experience. It was there I learned that Christ wants to walk with us 24/7 rather than just after we die.

The Bible – With this awakening I became very hungry for the Scriptures. For the next few years I read the Bible through a couple of times and memorized a few chapters. My favorites were 1 Cor. 13, Hebrews 1, Philippians 2, and Romans 12.

Unfortunately I waned a few years after that.

Colleen McCullough – I very much identified with Meggie the The Thorn Birds. She personifies the confusing dialectical choice between God or human romantic love. I read this in high school and then saw the miniseries while a young nurse after I met my Ralph. I ended up marrying Luke too.

Alexandra Ripley – Scarlett came out while I was separated for the first time from my now ex-husband. I wanted to see if she could get Rhett back. If I hadn’t been successful, I wouldn’t have had Rachel.

unworthyseraphim – I didn’t read for a long time after that. When I was remarried to George and probably because of being devastated by having a still-born child, Isaac, I wanted more from Church. I saw the Passion movie and was so moved I started to explore Catholicism on a Christian on-line forum that I’d recently found through a writer’s group’s advice. They were starting Catholic/Protestant discussions and I started asking questions. “unworthyseraphim”, the only Orthodox poster, answered them better with his wonderful, peaceful, informative style and grace. He drove over from Mississippi to be George’s sponsor at our Chrismation.

Clark Carlton – His The Faith was the first Orthodox book I read on the recommendation of a parishoner when we visited our first Orthodox Church. I haven’t read it since I’ve heard that some think he’s too polemical, but I was so shocked that I’d never heard of the Orthodox Church and so loved the positive things he said about it that I probably thought the polemics criticizing why it took 40 years for Christian me in a Christian country to be connected with Christ’s body and blood were justified.

The biography of St. Seraphim of Sarov (maybe Zander’s version?) made my spirit rejoice when I found someone else who wanted to hide under leaves when people came to visit.

St. Maximus the Confessor – I have to give Perry and Photios the credit for my finding this genius Saint. Through the discussions and Photios’ paper, “Synergy in Christ” (I have a category with that name where there may be a link to it) I found some pretty substantial meat that’s sourced a lot of content on this blog.

Dr. David Bradshaw – Aristotle East and West helpfully focuses on the tradition of the Orthodox understanding of the essence and energy distinction that Energetic Procession discusses in a forum format.

Fyodore Dostoevsky and Charles Dickens – Because I have two spots left, I’ll close with them. I’ve recently read Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and David Copperfield to better understand how Christ’s energies work in this fallen world of fallen human relationships.

I’ll extend the invitation to anyone to post their influential 15 authors instead of listing specific people.

Dangerous Creativity

by Andrea Elizabeth

The following are excerpts from The Patristic Heritage and Modernity by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, who I just learned was born 2 days before me. Hat tip to A Vow of Conversation.

It starts comfortably enough.

No one will challenge the need for preserving the patristic heritage. The “protective” element is emphasized in the words of St Athanasius given above: the Fathers have preserved Holy Tradition for us. But have they preserved this treasure for it to wither away, like the talent buried in the ground, unearthed from time to time to establish whether it has corroded from so long a lack of use? Have the Fathers written books for us to keep on shelves, dusting them from time to time and ever so rarely consulting them for that obligatory quote?

If we concentrate only on the preservation and conservation of what has been accumulated by our Fathers before us, then things are quite simple. When, however, our vocation is to invest the talent of the patristic heritage, we find ourselves confronted by a tremendous task indeed, comprising not only the study of the works of the Fathers, but also their interpretation in the light of contemporary experience; it similarly requires an interpretation of our contemporary experience in the light of the teaching of the Fathers. This not only means studying the Fathers; the task before us is also to think patristically and to live patristically. For we will not be able to understand the fathers, if we have not shared their experience and endeavours, at least to a certain degree.

This task is tremendous and inspiring, yet at the same time quite hazardous. Just as no one who decides to invest his “talent” is warranted against bankruptcy, no theologian who approaches the appropriation of the patristic heritage in a creative way is preserved from error. The distance – in time, culture, and spirituality – between the fathers and us is too large, it seems too difficult to surmount the obstacles that confound our attempts to penetrate the mind of the fathers. Yet as long as we fail to surmount these obstacles, we cannot fulfil the mission entrusted to us by the modern age as members of the Orthodox church. This mission consists in the capacity not only to make our faith truly “patristic”, but also to express it in a language accessible to 21st century human beings.

[...] One may ask with bewilderment: If two fathers of the church express contradictory opinions, where, then, is truth to be found? I consider such a question to be an inadmissible simplification. There is one truth and, as Clement of Alexandria says, “The way of truth is one.” But into it, “as into a perennial river, streams flow from all sides”.[15] One and the same truth may be expressed differently by different Fathers, in different times, in different languages, in different contexts. Besides this, one and the same truth may have several aspects, each of which may be articulated, emphasized, developed or, on the contrary, left in obscurity. The truth has many facets, many shapes, and is dialectical. For instance, the thesis that sacraments administered by a priest who has been canonically ordained by a bishop are effective and salutary is true. But no less true is the antithesis, according to which the moral countenance of the priest should correspond with the prominence of his orders and the sacraments he administers. Between both affirmations there is quite a wide expanse, wherein a theological synthesis may be sought. All that falls within that expanse belongs to the consensus patrum; all that falls beyond is heresy. Donatism, which goes beyond the framework of the “consensus”, is a heresy, whereas the teaching of St Symeon the New Theologian on the “power to bind and to loose”, which remains within that expanse, is absolutely correct – even though it is distinct from opinions expressed by other Fathers who lived in other historical contexts, wrote in other languages and emphasized other aspects of the very same truth.

Then it starts to get scary.

[...]They [Catholic scholars mentioned before this part who have studied the East] have achieved a mighty, qualitative leap forward and succeeded in breaking down the wall between the Christian East and West, laying the foundations for a truly “catholic” theology (meaning a theology which, following Fr John Meyendorff, includes and organically assimilates the theological heritage of East and West in all its diversity).[18] But another qualitative leap forward is needed in order to build the neo-patristic synthesis upon this foundation, a leap that we, who have entered the 21st century, must make.

It is necessary to find a new approach to the Fathers, once which would allow us to see the patristic heritage more comprehensively. I am deeply convinced that a fundamental and indispensable element of such a new approach should be the logically consistent use of a contextual method of patristic reading.

He subsequently outlines it in more detail. Then a friendly example,

Rarely did the East wonder about the reasons for the emergence of certain practices, or the development of certain dogmatic teachings, in the West. Rarely did anyone endeavour to look at the Latin tradition through the eyes of the Latins themselves. One of the exceptions was St Maximus the Confessor, who tried to discern the teaching about the filioque from as it were – the Western context.[20] In his Letter to Marinus, St. Maximus likens the Western teaching on the procession of the Spirit “from the Father and the Son” to the Eastern teaching on the procession “from the Father through the Son”; he does not apply the Byzantine criterion to the Western teaching but merely compares both traditions and looks for similarities between them. Although St Maximus gives a far from exhaustive answer to this matter, which is treated with far more detail in the works of later Byzantine authors, the very fact of a Byzantine saint attempting to view Latin teaching through Latin eyes remains remarkable.

But then he seems to say it’s already been done, and that the historic Hebrew understanding, for instance, doesn’t need to be undertaken.

Salvation has come “from the Jews” and has been propagated in the world in Greek idiom. Indeed, to be Christian means to be Greek, since our basic authority is forever a Greek book, the New Testament. The Christian message has been forever formulated in Greek categories. This was in no sense a blunt reception of Hellenism as such, but a dissection of Hellenism. The old had to die, but the new was still Greek — the Christian Hellenism of our dogmatics, from the New Testament to St Gregory Palamas, nay, to our own time. I am personally resolved to defend this thesis, and on two different fronts: against the belated revival of Hebraism and against all attempts to reformulate dogmas in categories of modern philosophies, whether German, Danish or French (Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin)…[23]

I believe that Florovsky, had he lived to the end of the 20th century, would have lost the war he wished to unleash, at least on the “first front”. In the first half of the 20th century the revival of what Florovsky calls “Hebraism” — the revival of interest for the Semitic tradition (in its Jewish, Aramaic, Syriac or Arabic form) — was only beginning to gain momentum. Florovsky could not have anticipated that in the late 20th century a whole corpus of writings by St Isaac the Syrian[24] would be discovered, which was significantly to enrich our understanding of this great Syriac writer-mystic of the 7th century. Florovsky could not have known many of the many Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopian and Armenian writings that were to be published in the monumental series Corpus Christianorum Orientalium (currently counting over 500 volumes), which fundamentally reversed the then-dominant understanding of the patristic heritage as the sum of the Patrologia Graeca and the Patrologia Latina. Only towards the end of the 20th century did it become obvious that besides these traditions there existed a Patrologia Orientalis as well, the thriving world of “Oriental” theological traditions, deeply authentic in form and content; it became clear that Christianity cannot be reduced to either Byzantinism or Greece.

And about modern philosophies, he’s saying they don’t need to influence or promote a reformulation of dogma. That’s assuring. But what role should they play?

As for Florovsky’s “second front”, although it is indeed dangerous to attempt to “reformulate” dogmas in the categories of contemporary philosophical tendencies, some of these trends — first of all Heidegger’s and Kierkegaard’s existentialism mentioned by Florovsky — by themselves indicate the departure of Western thought from Renaissance anthropocentrism and the rationalism of the Enlightenment, thus clearing the way for a return to the truly Christian catholic theological tradition. As did ancient philosophy at the times of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, existentialist philosophy may serve — and for many has already served — as a “pedagogue” towards Christ. Existentialism can be ecclesialized in the way that ancient philosophy was ecclesialized by the Greek Fathers in the 3rd and 4rth centuries.[25] Moreover the conceptual language of existentialism, which doubtless is closer to persons today than that of the ancient philosophy employed by the Greek Fathers, may be used, if not for the formation of a “neo-patristic synthesis”, then at least for the interpretation of its main elements in the language of our contemporaries. Finally we can not ignore the fact that the theology of the Fathers is, as Florovsky has worded it so well, itself “existential” in essence, in opposition to all “essential” theologies not founded upon a real experience of communion with God.[26]

Next he tackles Catholic mysticism, including the following:

The opinion of St Ignatius Brianchaninov that all works by Catholic mystics after the great schism have been written in a state of spiritual “drunkenness” and delusion is well known. Since Bishop Ignatius has been canonized, some value his opinion as “patristic”. Yet we also know a different approach by other — equally canonized — church writers with a somewhat less cautious and categorical attitude towards Catholic spirituality.[31] Some Orthodox Fathers are known for the direct influence Catholic spirituality exercised upon them. St Dimitri of Rostov was under this influence for his entire life: his homilies as well as other works, including the Reading Compendium of Saint’s lives, based primarily on Latin sources,[32] have a distinctly “Westernizing” character; St Dimitri’s library held books by Bonaventure, Thomas a Kempis, Peter Canisius and other Catholic authors, and in his spirituality such elements as the devotion of the passions of Christ, the five wounds of Christ and the heart of Christ may be traced.[33] The influence of Catholic spirituality on St Tikhon of Zadonsk[34]can equally be sensed.

How can such different approaches towards Catholic spirituality and mysticism between St Ignatius on the one side, and St Dimitri of Rostov and St Tikhon of Zadonsk on the other, be explained? It seems to me that much is accounted for by the differences between the contexts in which each of them live[d].

He goes on to explain. This is the most fearsome part:

The inevitable influence of the Catholic spirituality which St Dimitri and St Tikhon experienced in the 18th century did not, however, undermine their deep rootedness in the Orthodox tradition.

Then after you’re all tense about it he says,

Please do not attempt to find in my words any effort to “justify” Catholic mysticism. I am by no means an “Eastern admirer of Western spirituality” and have no personal sympathy whatsoever for Catholic mysticism, since I have been raised on totally different examples: the writings of the Fathers of the Eastern church, in particular Greek and Syriac. I have not mentioned Catholic mysticism in order to debate its content, but to present and illustrate a method that, in my view, should be applied to any phenomena whatsoever, be in within or without the framework of the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

I like Metropolitan Hilarion’s Contextual approach and appreciate his detailed explanation of it here. I have been trying to do similar things (in my own limited way, etc.) on this blog and hope that the Metropolitan’s explanations help guide and explain to others this dangerous, but I believe necessary task. Necessary especially to those with a western heritage. It is interesting that Russia ended up studying western sources a lot. Nevertheless, understanding others is a worthy endeavor. Being surgical about it is the difficult part.

How Can I Keep From Singing about Marble Halls?

by Andrea Elizabeth

There are two Enya songs that especially appeal to me. They are both older songs, unlike her usual eclectic sound that is an original blend of many influences. However, I am trying to wean myself from one of them, “Marble Halls” which is from an opera, The Bohemian Girl.Though beautiful, the lyrics are particularly narcissistically vainglorious. Above all, they express a desire to be worshiped and adored. I suppose the one suitor is supposed to be flattered that the subject wants adoration from him more than any other. The dreamy state induced by the idea of being the object of that person’s desire is self-indulgent and greedy. The subject is not really adoring anyone else, just loving being adored. For someone fixated on being thusly adored, worship seems a foreign concept, which leads me to the other Enya song that has a similar sound, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” Wikipedia provides this,

My life flows on in endless song:

Above earth’s lamentation,

I catch the sweet, tho’ far-off hymn

That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul–

How can I keep from singing?

What tho’ my joys and comfort die?

The Lord my Saviour liveth;

What tho’ the darkness gather round?

Songs in the night he giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

I lift my eyes; the cloud grows thin;

I see the blue above it;

And day by day this pathway smooths,

Since first I learned to love it.

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,

A fountain ever springing;

All things are mine since I am his–

How can I keep from singing?

These are the words as published by Robert Lowry in the 1869 song book, Bright Jewels for the Sunday School.^[3] Here Lowry claims credit for the music, but gives no indication as to who wrote the words. These words were also published in a British periodical in 1869, The Christian Pioneer,^[4] but no author is indicated. Ira D. Sankey published his own setting of the words in Gospel Hymns, No. 3 (1878), writing that the words were anonymous.^[5] In 1888, Henry S. Burrage listed this hymn as one of those for which Lowry had written the music, but not the lyrics.^[6]

Doris Plenn learned the original hymn from her grandmother, who reportedly believed that it dated from the early days of the Quaker movement. Plenn contributed the following verse around 1950, which was taken up by Pete Seeger and other folk revivalists:^[7]

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,

And hear their death-knell ringing,

When friends rejoice both far and near,

How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile,

Our thoughts to them go winging;

When friends by shame are undefiled,

How can I keep from singing?

_______

These lyrics express faith in God amidst times of earthly trial, such as when one is not being adored, to say the least. I can imagine that St. Stephen had similar thoughts when he saw the heavens 0pened and Christ standing on the right hand of God. (Acts 7:56)

To me, adoration seems to flow in one direction. If one desires adoration, one has to turn around and face the ones behind who adore. The person sort of interrupts the adoration stream that would have gone around them if they hadn’t turned around and blocked it. To adore, that person has to turn back the other direction and face the object of his or her desire. If one allows that we are to venerate people as well as adoring and worshiping God, and that this can be a unified act, there seems little room for turning around to receive such attention. I think receiving proper love and attention has its place, but that is different than what is described in the first song. And as with spiritual blessings, it is sometimes wise to ignore it in order to prevent prelest. Listening to both of these songs back to back can give a person whiplash.

Stoicism and Romanticism

by Andrea Elizabeth

Aaron’s post on Romanticism has inspired me to go ahead and put down my thoughts after also reading a previous post of his in which The Ocholophobist commented that he has been told that Orthodoxy is closer to Stoicism than Neoplatonism, which influenced my thoughts while watching Enchanted with my daughters yesterday.

The Wikipedia page on Stoicism shows me some similarities and differences with how I view Orthodoxy. While I think we need to learn non-reaction to temptations that cause us to respond in a negatively passionate manner, we should not be apathetic to the point that Marcus Aurelius can be taken in these quotes,

• “How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!” (xii.13)
• “Outward things cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree; nor have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul; but the soul turns and moves itself alone.” (iv.3)

If we cut ourselves off to any reaction at all, we will not experience the Fruits of the Spirit, which seem positive emotions or feelings. But love, peace and joy are deeper and more abiding than excitement, fun, exhilaration, and the like, not that there is absolutely no place for these either. Perhaps there is even room for righteous indignation and anger, but it seems to me most of us feel this way when really we are exhibiting panic, feeling threatened, and have lack of faith.

Now to Enchanted. In this third viewing, I categorized Robert’s stoic stance against Romanticism as based on disappointment and hurt. He tried to close himself off from believing in being “in love” because his previous experience seemed to negate that it was “true”, since his wife left. Prince Edward believes in romance for romance’s sake and consistently acts in a romantic way, regardless of his circumstances. He is noble, and in a sense apathetic to his environment since it doesn’t impact his actions at all. Until he sees that Giselle is romantically attached to Robert, and then he merely shifts his romanticism to the next available person. Both of these men are faithful, solid, and trustworthy as they will not let feelings (Robert) or circumstances (Edward) shift them from their course of commitment to the agreeing female. This puts the catalyst for change squarely on the shoulders of the girl, Giselle. But before I shift to her, I’ll say that Robert is not able to squelch his reborn romantic feelings for her, though he is determined not to act on them until given permission.

Giselle starts out as Edward in following the prescribed rules for consistent, emotional romanticism. She is sort of like the innocent, inexperienced Eve who drops into an already fallen world. She adapts however. The scene where she starts to fall for Robert is when he comes out in his bathrobe, revealing his hairy chest. At first this isn’t what affects her, but his insistence that falling in love after just one day is unrealistic. She becomes angry for the first time – a negative emotion. And this makes her happy. It is after this that she notices Robert’s chest and has a lustful feelings for him. I do not like that these negative emotions/passions of anger and lust comprise her awakening. Nevertheless this unromantic person becomes the object of her affections, while the romantic person suddenly becomes boring. She convinces Prince Edward to go out on a date with her, and all of the sudden, now that he’s come to the end of his quest for her, he becomes childish and dumb. She tries to start interesting conversations, but he doesn’t know how to have any. She makes a justifiable comment when she says that she has begun to enjoy thinking and so she doesn’t want to leave the real world. Edward’s not interested in that. But he redeems himself at the ball when he notices that Giselle is not happy with him and sees that she loves Robert so he gives permission, as does Robert’s fiancee, and then Prince Edward nobly picks up the slack with the latter, who is happy to go to go back to feeling, romance world with him.

So apparently Giselle and Robert have both thoughts and feelings together. This would have seemed selfish, but they make up for it by putting his daughter first, and enjoying it. It is the three-ness that redeems the movie to me. But before they get to that point, the dangers of their romantic view point to Aaron’s quote from Sir Isaiah Berlin. This occurs at the ball when the unhappy Giselle somewhat knowingly takes the poison apple from the witch which will take her pain away. The hopes attached to romantic fulfillment are so captivating and seemingly essential, that when they are disappointed, life is not worth living. These two extremes are what has lead me to believe that Romanticism is poison. Loving God’s creation is gravy, it is not life. Life is loving God, and Romanticism shift this view away from Him in very competing and destructive ways. The pull is so very strong, that one has to completely deny it and exert 100% of one’s energy away from it by substituting those dreamy urges for what seems like cold, hard prayer. But once prayer is entered into, God will show us something different. We must work to maintain our focus on this different type of relationship, and not allow ourselves to be drawn back into the dreamy beauty of that promised, warm, lovely world. This is why I need the Church services as often as possible. The Church and her sacraments successfully compete with other addictions, though the process may be slow and incomplete until that final day. I’ll end with Aaron’s quote,

Romanticism is the primitive, the untutored, it is youth, the exuberant sense of life of the natural man, but it is also pallor, fever, disease, decadence, the maladie du siècle, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the Dance of Death, indeed Death itself. It is Shelley’s dome of many-coloured glass, and it is also his white radiance of eternity. It is the confused teeming fullness and richness of life, Fülle des Lebens, inexhaustible multiplicity, turbulence, violence, conflict, chaos, but also it is peace, oneness with the great ‘I Am’, harmony with the natural order, the music of the spheres, dissolution in the eternal all-containing spirit. It is the strange, the exotic, the grotesque, the mysterious, the supernatural, ruins, moonlight, enchanted castles, hunting horns, elves, giants, griffins, falling water, the old mill on the Floss, darkness and the powers of darkness, phantoms, vampires, nameless terror, the irrational, the unutterable. Also it is the familiar, the sense of one’s unique tradition, joy in the smiling aspect of everyday nature, and the accustomed sights and sounds of contented, simple, rural folk—the sane and happy wisdom of rosy-cheeked sons of the soil. It is the ancient, the historic, it is Gothic cathedrals, mists of antiquity, ancient roots and the old order with its unanalysable qualities, its profound but inexpressible loyalties, the impalpable, the imponderable. Also it is the pursuit of novelty, revolutionary change, concern with the fleeting present, desire to live in the moment, rejection of knowledge, past and future, the pastoral idyll of happy innocence, joy in the passing instant, a sense of timelessness. It is nostalgia, it is reverie, it is intoxicating dreams, it is sweet melancholy and bitter melancholy, solitude, the sufferings of exile, the sense of alienation, roaming in remote places, especially the East, and in remote times, especially the Middle Ages. But also it is happy co-operation in a common creative effort, the sense of forming part of a Church, a class, a party, a tradition, a great and all-containing symmetrical hierarchy, knights and retainers, the ranks of the Church, organic social ties, mystic unity, one faith, one land, one blood, ‘la terre et les morts’, as Barrès said, the great society of the dead and the living and the yet unborn. It is the the Toryism of Scott and Southey and Wordsworth, and it is the radicalism of Shelley, Büchner and Stendhal. It is Chateaubriand’s aesthetic medievalism, and it is Michelet’s loathing of the Middle Ages. It is Carlyle’s worship of authority, and Hugo’s hatred of authority. It is extreme nature mysticism, and extreme anti-naturalist aestheticism. It is energy, force, will, life étalage du moi; it is also self-torture, self-annihilation, suicide. It is the primitive, the unsophisticated, the bosom of nature, green fields, cow-bells, murmuring brooks, the infinite blue sky. No less, however, it is also dandyism, the desire to dress up, red waistcoats, green wigs, blue hair which the followers of people like Gérard de Nerval wore in Paris at a certain period. It is the lobster which Nerval led about on a string in the streets of Paris. It is wild exhibitionism, eccentricity, it is the battle of Ernani, it is ennui, it is taedium vitae, it is the death of Sardanopolis, whether painted by Delacroix, or written about by Berlioz or Byron. It is the convulsion of great empires, wars, slaughter and the crashing of worlds. It is the romantic hero—the rebel, l’homme fatal, the damned soul, the Corsairs, Manfreds, Giaours, Laras, Cains, all the population of Byron’s heroic poems. It is Melmoth, it is Jean Sbogar, all the outcasts and Ishmaels as well as the golden-hearted courtesans and the noble-hearted convicts of nineteenth-century fiction. It is drinking out of the human skull, it is Berlioz who said he wanted to climb Vesuvius in order to commune with a kindred soul. It is Satanic revels, cynical irony, diabolical laughter, black heroes, but also Blake’s vision of God and his angels, the great Christian society, the eternal order, and ‘the starry heavens which can scarce express the infinite and eternal of the Christian soul’. It is, in short, unity and multiplicity. It is fidelity to the particular, in the paintings of nature for example, and also mysterious tantalising vagueness of outline. It is beauty and ugliness. It is art for art’s sake, and art as an instrument of social salvation. It is strength and weakness, individualism and collectivism, purity and corruption, revolution and reaction, peace and war, love of life and love of death.