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I am in Love and that is Simply Grand (Two Gentlemen)

I am in Love and that is Simply Grand (Two Gentlemen)

Last updated on: June 1, 2016 at 12:31 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

I am in Love and that is Simply Grand (Two Gentlemen) 2016-06-01T00:31:57-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Being in love is on defense. If you are in love, you are aware that everyone that wishes to be in love and is not will be sad and those who are “out of love” will think you a liar or soon to be disillusioned.

In fact, if you do not note the cynicism and admit the good chance of coming disappointment, nobody will listen at all except those who have given up on reason in the hope that this will make love last.

It doesn’t, shouldn’t, and can’t.

Love is reasonable or it will not last reality.

Shakespeare knows this and in one his earliest plays Two Gentlemen of Verona tries to cheer on the lover while getting rid of the fool who bases his relationships on attraction. The play says:

… Love is blind.

And a certain kind of love surely is. One of the gentlemen is not much of a gentleman (Proteus), really a bit of a cad, and the other is both gentle and a real man (Valentine). Both the women are certainly ladies. What is the difference between the ladies and gentleman and this cad? Proteus is controlled by his desires and so cannot see. His natural desires, unnatural to divinity, blind him:

But when I look on her perfections,
There is no reason but I shall be blind.
If I can cheque my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill.

He will not endure unhappiness and say no to his erring love, but instead will follow his heart and so betrays his friend. One knows false love from true love by this: true love is morality, reality, and affection. False love can happen at first sight and is based on erotic blindness. False love is about “being true to myself and my feelings.” True love is about “being true to God and honor.”

Shakespeare understands the problem of false love, but does not take himself or the topic too seriously. False love is always very serious . . . ask Romeo. Erotic love will die if it cannot be actualized and so must win. Shakespeare laughs at this feverishness. There is a solution to erotic blindness if the false lover will but grasp it.

Julia, who has been rejected, understands the nature of true love. As she looks at a picture of her “rival,” she says:

If this fond Love were not a blinded god?
Come, shadow, come and take this shadow up,
For ’tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,
Thou shalt be worshipp’d, kiss’d, loved and adored!
And, were there sense in his idolatry,
My substance should be statue in thy stead.
I’ll use thee kindly for thy mistress’ sake,
That used me so; or else, by Jove I vow,
I should have scratch’d out your unseeing eyes
To make my master out of love with thee!

Julia looks at the picture of her rival and will take it to her beloved. Why? She knows that it is a shadow (an image) of an image. How? The woman it pictures is real enough, but the man does not see the real woman. He is in love with his desire. She will “use him kindly,” because the real woman behind the picture cannot stand Proteus. Julia knows that her love is real, because it is honorable, real, and not mere “attraction.” Any real woman knows Proteus is false and no real lover, because he can so quickly change his affections. Julia refuses to “compete” though she knows she is attractive enough to “win.” She sees her beloved as the mess he really is . . . and also sees that he can be better if he will repent. When he does repent, she is there to forgive him, but as herself and not as a desperate competitor for his wandering eye.

She appeals to his decency and honor.

Yet it is not Julia who wakes Proteus up. His friend Valentine kills false love through simple friendship. Valentine finds himself with power over Proteus, but instead of revenge, confronts Proteus with his error. His appeal is so effective that Proteus repents. Valentine then offers to step aside if that is best for both the woman he loves and his friend Proteus. This sacrifice is the measure of true friendship and exposes the merely erotic love of Proteus as the cheap and sordid thing it is.

The time has come for Americans to hold up the love that endures, is honorable, and is based on eternal values and not on personal preference. The cult of personal attraction is a false love even if it is based on abiding preference. Honor, community, and eternal values must come first.

But all that is very serious and love, even good love, is a bit comic. We must make love to survive as a species, but survival is not enough. We are not just beasts: we are people, Whatever kinds of love there may be in the cosmos, only a man and a woman making love produces new life. This is joyful, sublime, and funny. Real love has keen vision . . . but looks blind to people who care only about personal attraction. Real love sees so far down the road that it sees Heaven and the God who is love. It makes love in the light of eternity and never for personal fulfillment.

As a result, true lovers can be fulfilled, but only as ‘we.” The very process makes a man more than a man: a gentleman and every woman in love, a lady.

—————————————————————–

William Shakespeare went to God four hundred years ago. To recollect his death, I am writing a personal reflection on a few of his plays. The Winter’s Tale started things off, followed by As You Like It. Romeo and Juliet still matter, Lady Macbeth rebukes the lust for power, and Henry V is a hero. Richard II shows us not to presume on the grace of God or rebel against authority too easily. Coriolanus reminds us that our leaders need integrity and humility. Our life can be joyful if we realize that it is, at best, A Comedy of Errors. Hamlet needs to know himself better and talks to himself less. He is stuck with himself so he had better make his peace with God quickly and should stay far away from Ophelia. Shakespeare gets something wrong in Merchant of Venice . . . though not as badly as some in the English Labour Party or in my Twitter feed. Love if blind, but intellectualism is blind and impotent in Love’s Labours Lost. Brutus kills Caesar, but is overshadowed by him in Julius Caesar. We should learn not to make Much Ado about Nothing. We might all be Antony, but if we would avoid his fate then we must avoid flattery and the superficial love of Troilus and Cressida. We are fools, but our goal should be to accept it and not to degenerate into Biblical fools during our Midsummer Night’s Dream. Richard III is a symptom of a bad leadership community, but be careful that use Measure for Measure to guide your reaction to the mess. The modern university is Iago in Othello playing on our sins to destroy the nation. You can’t accumulate your way to a great leader and personal piety in Henry VI (Part I) is not enough to make a great king. God will save the King, not our stupid partisan squabbles seen in Henry VI (Part 2) and not kingmakers as existed in Henry VI (Part 3). Fortunately, in God’s world All’s Well That Ends Well. Two Gentlemen remind me that being in love is grand.

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