
Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - randomname2
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html
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officialchicken
Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I'm not sure the author really understands the
meaning of romanticism out side of Hallmark cards.

> the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage
> has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet
> all our needs and satisfy our every yearning

In fact, most of the Romantic art and paintings of the past couple of hundred
years all have grey clouds, rain, threatening weather, forsaken imagery taken
at locations at the edge of the earth, or other strong emotional visual
elements. Sure, there's a psychology at play that's true to the contemporary
fluffy bunny interpretation of the word, but that's where the Venn diagram
ends.

There is always an implied external or internal threat in Romanticism /
Romantic art - read: The Roman empire has fallen and will not return. And it's
not an explicit threat (except maybe Delacroix's work) either because it
happened or it's in the forgotten past. For example, there is absolutely no
defined sense of happiness and permanence in any truly "Romantic" art,
including Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein". Or Dracula for that matter - also
considered a Romantic masterpiece of literary art.

