Chapter 24: As if there was no war

 

Goethe

 

Goethe was known to have experienced love triangle throughout his life. Charlotte von Stein was for almost a decade his lover while Christiane Vulpius, was his long time companion before becoming his wife.

 

In his novel, “The selective affinities”, Goethe treated extensively about this theme. The goal of such triangular relationship was, in the XVIIIth Century, to prove the human heart. Should a tender loving couple confess a true love for one another, hence, a triangular relationship, that is physical passion, should not be able to destroy this tender love, if put on to test.

 

He was, naturally, accused of Immorality by his friends, not only for this book, but above all, for his determination to impose such ordeal to anyone wanting to become part of the intelligentsia in Saxony, and particularly in Weimar and Jena.

 

The show the capacity to separate sentimental love from physical passion, or him and necessarily for anyone of importance in Weimar and Jena, was the goal of this triangular ordeal. Traditional marriage was strongly perceived as a symbol of the Old World, and with the advent of Enlightenment, many people have tried to imagine different forms of relationships between men and women. Goethe’s original ideas about marriage, hence, also spread throughout Prussian societies. In Weimar, Berlin or Jena, people were sometimes wholeheartedly, sometimes very reluctantly, experiencing these new forms of marital life.

 

Among Goethe’s original ideas about marriage and human relationships, was the strong belief that just the same way as the individual chemical elements in Nature are pairing with each other to form bodies, driven by secret forces, so are the humans, through their hearts, driven to each other by invisible or visible causes. The human heart seeks for other human hearts with which it wants to pair and form a new body, despite all other forms of cultural determinations.

 

Goethe would also affirm, that when a heart has found its counterpart, and passion ensues, then a form of extreme consummation would take place between the two hearts, which can lead to death.

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[raindroplove]

keep writing its good :)