Abstract
One of the most insightful sources for understanding love, semiotically, is the narrative code that revolves around stories of lovers and their escapades. These are found in the literary traditions of all nations, starting with myths and tales that portray all aspects of love, from strong feelings of romance that unite people to love betrayals that destroy lives. These provide a narrative chronicle of the meanings of love throughout the eras and its co-occurrence with lust and carnality. Love stories move us deeply, indicating that they may be psychological templates for grasping the incidence of love in human life and its effects on human agency. The prototypical romance story is about idealized love, even though it may bring about dire consequences. Other kinds of love stories deal instead with the darker impulses that are associated with obsession. It can even be claimed that a substantial part of the history of humanity is informed and guided by the many love stories of every culture. When considered in their totality, these stories form a cohesive overarching narrative about the human condition. There are, in actual fact, few significant episodes in human history that do not involve love in some way. Our modern-day narrative blueprint for the romantic and pure love story comes from medieval chivalric literature. But the love story has embraced all possibilities, not just the chivalric code of medieval lore. It has always connected models of romance to relevant social issues, including, today, our changing views of sexuality and sexual orientation. In fact, our contemporary versions of the love story have contributed significantly to breaking down the stereotyping of gender codes further, showing that love does indeed transcend sexuality.
The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you.
—Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273)
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Notes
- 1.
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (London, Verso, 1991).
- 2.
Joseph L. Henderson, “Ancient Myths and Modern Man,” in Carl G. Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols, (New York: Dell, 1964), p. 146.
- 3.
The quotation by Anna Magnani is taken from Oriana Fallaci’s, The Egotists (New York: H. Regnery, 1963).
- 4.
Giacomo Casanova, The Story of My Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2001).
- 5.
Carl Jung, The Portable Jung (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).
- 6.
Ibid., p. 12.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 12.
- 8.
Philip Simpson, Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer Through Contemporary American Film and Fiction (Chicago: Southern Illinois University Press 2000), p. 31.
- 9.
Sima Qian, Han Dynasty: Records of the Grand Historian I (New York: Columba University Press, 1993).
- 10.
Peter Vronsky, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (New York: Berkley. 2007), p. 78.
- 11.
Tony Thorne, Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of the Blood Countess, Elisabeth Báthory (London: Bloomsbury, 1997), p. 3.
- 12.
Dirk C. Gibson, Legends, Monsters, or Serial Murderers? The Real Story Behind an Ancient Crime (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012), p. 73.
- 13.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1886).
- 14.
Oscar Wilde, Complete Works, ed. by Josephine M. Guy, volume 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 94.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 94.
- 16.
Ibid., p. 95.
- 17.
Jeffrey Mishlove, The Roots of Consciousness (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1993), p. 40.
- 18.
Many P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1973).
- 19.
Marcel Danesi, The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).
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Danesi, M. (2019). Love Stories. In: The Semiotics of Love. Semiotics and Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18111-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18111-6_4
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