Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

DANTE'S BEATRICE: A DEATH IN JUNE

by Andy Nowicki


Over seven centuries ago, the most famous literary muse of all time—namely Dante Alighieri’s beloved Beatrice—ascended to her eternal glory. Dante followed his muse into the bourn of the undiscovered country three decades later, but not before composing a host of works which testify to the full extent of the Beatrician influence on the Dantean imagination.

"SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL'S DYING!"


Love can die. Sometimes it dies hard, and with a vengeance. What happens to it afterwards? Does it proceed to its final judgment, then pass on to some eternal realm, be it Heaven or Hell? Or does it limp along in some pallid, spectral form like Caesar's ghost, oppressively ever-present even when it has seemingly vanished?

What of cases where love's collapse is expressly and tragically unilateral, expressly violating the consent of the formerly-loved? As Rick Springfield semi-famously observed, "Love hurts when only one's in love." Or as the J. Geils Band more succinctly put it, "Love stinks."