Rough Rough Draft

Here is my very rough draft of my essay so far.  I am still working out the construction of it as a whole.  I want to switch around ideas from the intro and put them into the body paragraphs.  I love writing the intros because I always think of more arguments when considering the broader subject of my topic first. 

           
Love. Love. LOVE.  What sentiment does not relate to love in some way? Well, they all do, whether in similarity or opposition.  Even if one does not believe in love, it’s contraversy and relevance to today’s population is evident.  It’s universal; all people are familiar with it.  The subject feels unnatural, even unscholarly to discuss in formal settings i.e. this paper, but it is so universal and relevant to all people that it should not be avoided, especially in discussing the arts, as love is what often times acts as the fuel behind creativity.  The theme of love in literature is explored in almost all forms of literature, eras and regions.   Love poetry is a sub genre of poetry that has become widely recognized due to the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Emerson, T.S. Eliot, etc. as well as the less recognized like Sappho, Petrarch, Dante.  To add to the argument of love’s fundamentality, most poets have written about love at some point in their lives, even the mystery horror poet Edgar Allen Poe, with the poem, Annabel Lee.  It is writers connective tissue; it is human’s connective tissue.  Historically, romance writing officially began in later Ancient Greek fiction, but it can be found in works much earlier such as the Old Testament of the Bible.  In Ancient Western times, love was seen as a curse; something that unvoluntarily struck you and caused you misery.  Take, Cupid for example, he wounded people with a bow and arrow and from henceforth they were victims to love’s perils.  There would be less heartache in our world today, if it were looked upon in the same way.  Love poetry is such a broad sub genre that it calls for sub sub genres.  There are poems that focus on falling in love, falling out of love, being heartbroken, etc.  Where I find the most danger is in the whimsical, fluffy love poems about the feelings of being in love.  Yes, they make for beautiful pieces of art and are interpretations of feelings that can be truthful in the moment.  Take any one of these “head-over-heels-falling-in-love” poems and I can bet that all of the authors’ opinions of the subject of their poems have altered, or at least fluctuated, in one way or another.  I believe the sentiments expreessed are often times true for a short period of time, but in the timeline of life, they lose their validity and truthfulness, and not necessarily their power, which is where the danger is found.   Take Francesco Petrarca, also recognized as Petrarch, for example.  He is fundamental in the world of sonnets, love sonnets, even in the world of writing.  In his Il Canzoniere, almost all of the 366 poems are about the mystical Laura, with whom he was in love with throughout his entire life without knowing or even interracting with her, even passing her death.  If there is any type of unrealistic love, it would be this, however, not underestimating it yet.  While Petrarch's sonnets are almost entirely about his eternal love Laura, he is more concerned with his own feelings of love and not Laura herself.  Standardized western beliefs of love, both unrealistic and realistic, are deeply rooted in both Petrarch's society and ours today.  The classical thought of love being a curse surely influenced Petrarch, although Christian, but it takes the more ripened mind to identify the ideal while consulting love poetry.  

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Take Petrarch’s Sonnet 3 for example.  Petrarch was extremely influenced by classical authors and idealogies, so it should not come to surprise when he says, “Love discovered me all weaponless/…to wound me with his arrow, in that state,/ he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed” (9-14).  This is a reference to Cupid and the misfortunes that love brings.  

Contrast it with Sonnet 101 to show a fluctuation of his feelings of love to add to point of instability.