Literature, Culture and Society XIX Century

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In novels as in poems, lyrical and tragic, love is most often fueled by obstacles and passion seems all the stronger because it is impossible and condemned. Following in the footsteps of Stendhal (and his On Love), Denis de Rougemont has shown in Love and the West this intimate and burning link between love and death, which he traces back to the 12th century and the myth of Tristan and Isolde. Cursed and unhappy lovers are in fact legions in art and literature. However, it is less this "passionate love" as such that we will be interested here than a certain type of obstacle that both exalts and prevents romantic relationships, when the prohibition weighs more particularly on the race, class or sex of the lovers.