Monday, April 10, 2006

Love as tragedy

Saw the movie poster for Tristan and Isolde today on the streets, and the idea popped into my mind that the root cause of almost all tragedies is love. No other emotion can stir the human heart so, prompting it to do incredible (sometimes incredibly stupid) things, and creating tremendous and overreaching consequences that will persist through generations (like getting shotgun kids). And that is why the tale of Tristan and Isolde, and the whirlwind overture Richard Wagner wrote that languishes and laments and very reluctant comes to an orgasmic closure, and adaptations of the story in the medium of our day, still stays with us.

Though love can be incredibly touching, tragic, almost inhuman in its poignancy, isn't it absurd that it can also at the same time means a whole lot of other things at the other range of the emotional spectrum, and be totally banal? Ah! so ist die lieb!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In the movie Troy, the cause of conflict was also love...