“...Is Romance Dead?”

Now let me preface by saying this topic was not something on my “No Dankes” list. Well actually, that’s a lie. It probably was something I didn’t know I didn’t like.

But now, after seeing Bright Star recently, a strong aversion to present-day courtship customs arose within me.

How do we ladies stand it?

Keats wrote to his beloved Fanny:

“I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often ‘to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I can do that no more - the pain would be too great - My Love is selfish - I cannot breathe without you.”

Seriously? What? I mean, I know Keats belonged to the Romanticism literary movement and all. But what?


Perhaps I idealize and idolize a bit. Perhaps irrationally so. I know men - and women for that matter - are fairly incapable of writing such poetic, romantic prose these days.
 
What, with Facebook and Playstation and Football games diluting our heads and offering never-ending distractions.
 
And I’m sure we ladies, as recipients (or gentlemen for that matter), would laugh at such amorous endeavors as love letters. Like Carrie laughed when the Russian composed a song for her, getting her to thinking later that day, “...is romance dead?”
 
Yes Carrie, methinks it is.
 
Obviously I can be a judgmental bitch and would most likely say “See ya lata” to any Creepy McCreeperson calling me their religion. But a thoughtful handwritten note never hurt no one. Instead, we modern lassies get texts. Texts. 

“What r u up to 2night!?” hardly compares to “When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window: you always concentrate my whole senses.”
 
Those opposite-spectrum examples don’t even deserve to be in the same paragraph together.
Kelly, a fellow Bright Star-goer had an interesting thought. Maybe the passion of yester-century had to do with the anticipation. The waiting. I mean, we’re talking pre-snail mail. Like, amoeba mail. That shit took weeks, if not months to get where it was going.
 
Can you imagine the patience? The yearning? We modern kids think it’s been forever and a day if we haven’t heard from someone in two hours.
Maybe the lack of immediacy enabled the eloquence. Maybe drafts upon drafts were written to one’s beloved while they waited (and waited and waited) for a reply letter to arrive. 

Perhaps all those moments of waiting simply snowballed and magically manifested their heartbreak into things like: “I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen.”
Yet we wait and wait for a text. A text. Or an email. And even with the passing of a day or two - forever in our interminably high-speed world - that is just so unsatisfying. 

Sorry’s yo. I’m sure once I stop reading Keats’ letters and sonnets and poems, I’ll return to my snarky self. Rest assured.