Emotions are a major determination of the experiences which individuals come across as human beings. Through emotional experiences, they get an opportunity to reach their inner self for an understanding of how they could connect with nature which forms a part of their daily experiences, at times accepting to be embraced by pride, a feeling that you are respected, appreciated and above all, admired for individual inherent qualities or even at times also face up rejection of social standards which are felt to undermine the positive mental attitudes that generate desired emotional experiences.
In the modern romantic age, emotions are frequently favorably channeled towards love and how individuals could attain peace of mind by reaching out for others and themselves for a course to this end. Emotions can also be of deep seated disappointment which result from frustrations in people’s daily aspirations. Voltaire (1759) for example in his satirical book, “Candide” wondered why bad things usually happen to good people and that everything that happens must be addressed as of causal – effect phenomenon. Ifso, could love as an emotion be the precipitator of all the good and ill of the society? This can only be answered by his own contradictory statements that,”love is the comfort of human species, the preserver of the universe and the soul of sensible beings,” and in the opposite of this is that,”if a man is in love, is jealous and has been flogged by inquisition, he becomes lost to all reflection.
This is to imply that individuals can only be dictated by love and to a large extend the experiences range from those of an embrace of nature as provided to them, self pride arising from their freedom and sense of achievement and to the same extreme extend, a rejection of social standards which do not conform to their perception of what constitute virtues or socially accepted principles. Just as candied was a good respectful student and later on to a murderer when threatened by circumstances to protect himself from the degrading occurrences as of his previous times.
The concept of deception and hypocrisy also occurs when discussing modern day romance and especially in this context, in reference to Swift’s (1732) The Lady’s Dressing Room. This poem analyses and more notably criticizes women in their attempt to always project themselves as the ideal symbols to men’s expectations. Celia’s boyfriend is so frustrated, disappointed and feels cheated when he strays into her room in her absence only to realize that she also shits,(line 118).He had idolized her so much not to imagine her to be human ,a point earlier addressed in analyzing Candide through a statement that men are lost to all reflection when they love. It is at this point that critics should be prudently cautioned against one sided approach to circumstances like for example in this case where both men and women share the same brunt of criticism for falsehood in displaying their individual emotions as is in this case unlike in Swift’s approach.
A more open approach to the subject of modern day romance can however be clearly explained by examining Browning’s (1850) sonnet (14) titled,”if thou must love me, let it be for nought.”In her view, contrary to the earlier analyzed writers who allowed situations to dictate their course of action and therefore life, it is stated for a lover that if they may love each other, it must not be out of any physical attribute such as a beautiful smile, a nice voice or any other trickery that lovers profess .Rather, it should be for nothing. Nothing in this case to imply not the physical attributes but the inner beauty that every human being possesses. She is not critical or even satirical of any form of misdeed witnessed in love but strongly points out that if individuals had to achieve inner satisfaction emanating from true love, then they should only be natural in how they do it, a major attribute earlier pointed out by Swift.This, the truth only best brought out by a romantic nature poem. We should all as individuals note that the essence of love is not in thought or deeds or even in our demonstrated service to others, it is by how much we give ourselves to ourselves and others!
References
Elizabeth Barret Browning (1850) Sonnets From Portuguese
Jonathan Swift (1732) The Lady’s Dressing Room
Voltaire (1759) Candide
