On Love: Eros and Phileo

It's popular just now to write a post on love. I don't know why this should be, but it so happens that I just finished a long paper on the subject for Medieval lit, and have found the observations that I picked up in researching it to be very applicable to life. Ergo, I wish to reproduce them here. The points are as follows, and I quote:

“Every one has heard of courtly love,” writes C.S. Lewis, “and every one knows that it appears quite suddenly at the end of the eleventh century in Languedoc” (Allegory 2). What every one does not know, and what Lewis goes on to explain, is that the erotic focus established in Languedoc precipitated a revolution so influential that, compared with it, “the Renaissance is a mere ripple on the surface of literature” (Allegory 4). Lewis insists that the troubadours of France “effected a change which has left no corner of our ethics, our imagination, or our daily life untouched, and they erected impassable barriers between us and the classical past” (Allegory 4).

That portion of the Western canon which was produced by antiquity lacks interest in romantic love. It is not eros but rather phileo which occupies the place of honor in ancient sentiment and praise. Brotherly love (or friendship-love) between men is the exalted sentiment, and erotic love is at best a footnote to the main action, which consists of heroes seeking glory, enduring labors, performing great deeds, and enjoying friendship. Nor is this an invention of the Greco-Romans. The epic of Gilgamesh, which is thought to be the world’s oldest, exists—with regard to love—as a display of phileo.

The hero Gilgamesh, his companion Enkidu, and their friendship, are the focus of the story. Shamhat (a temple prostitute) comes into it, but her encounter with Enkidu is only an episode, and her name drops out after the first tablet. Phileo is at the core of the narrative, uniting two men in adventure, conquest, and the search for glory over the course of seven tablets. Since there are only eleven tablets in all, we are surely justified in the assertion that this friendship dominates the story. The tragedy of the epic comes in at the eighth tablet, with the death of Enkidu and Gilgamesh’s mourning for his lost friend.

It may be argued that the theme of the Odyssey is romantic love, and indeed, who could forget the image of Odysseus weeping for Penelope beside the winedark sea? In this case, however, the theme of the story is homecoming. Odysseus would not be just as happy as a beggar in Athens, with Penelope as his only companion. His love for her is bound up in his love for the life that he left behind. Penelope would not be enough by herself; Odysseus must also be king of Ithaca, father of Telemachus, and hero of the Trojan wars. Thus, though phileo is not the central love-theme of the story, neither is eros. Lewis might say that we see in the Odyssey affectionate love—the love of the familiar.

In the Iliad there is more potential for a clash between loves, but it never occurs. Briseis provides an incentive for some of Achilles’ actions, but his greatest and most climactic deeds are clearly performed for the sake of dead Patroclus. The friendship between these heroes is the central love of the story. There is never any question whether Briseis or Patroclus matters most to Achilles, no more than there is a question of whether Enkidu values Gilgamesh above Shamhat. The axis of each story is one hero’s death and the other’s response. Readers are invited to mourn these deaths as deeply as Gilgamesh and Achilles do. Shamhat and Briseis are, by comparison, no more than a distraction or a device.

In fact, love is not the primary theme at all. The primary theme of the Iliad is the same which we saw in Gilgamesh: pursuit of glory. Early heroic epics all have this quest for glory and reputation in common. It is as true of Odysseus and Aeneas as it is of Achilles, though mixed, as in the character of Achilles, with other motivations (going home and founding a nation, respectively). And, of the possible loves, phileo is that which best accommodates the theme. Lewis observes that friends stand beside one another, looking outward towards a common goal (The Four Loves). For ancient authors renown was that goal, and friendship between those who sought it was the most appropriate kind of love.

Lewis describes courtly love as “love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love” (Allegory 2). Saving only that “lack of consummation” might be substituted for “Adultery” as a more accurate description, I will let the definition stand. Lewis also points out that this version of erotic love is strongly marked by feudalism. The lover is his lady’s man, and she is his feudal “lord” (Allegory 2). Whereas before he accomplished warlike deeds for his own name, now he aims to bear himself in such a manner as to be worthy of his lady. Whereas before his focus was war and warlike skills, he must now also assume the airs and graces of a courtier to please her dainty taste. The hero of old was concerned with an intangible—glory—and its application to himself. The medieval knight is concerned with another intangible: a romantic relationship. But the application is not any longer to him alone; now there is a woman toward whom his face must be continually turned.
The great shift engendered by courtly love, which led Lewis to comment that its advent “erected impassable barriers between us and the classical past” (Allegory 4), was a shift of focus. If friends stand side by side in order to look at the object of devotion, lovers signify their center of attention by facing each other (Four Loves 66). Happiness in life, hitherto defined as the burnishing of one’s name and reputation, acquired a new denotation. It came to mean, as the popular culture now believes, success in a romantic relationship. Achilles and Patroclus gave way. Troilus and Criseyde arose to take their place. Deeds of war remained, but the cause of war was altered. Achilles fought for glory, but Lancelot fought for Guinevere. And this became so common a theme that, eventually, Don Quixote fought for a nonexistant Dulcinea.

The character in whom phileo struggled with eros for preeminence among the loves of Western literature was not the product of a single author. On the contrary, he developed over several centuries and drew on the traditions of two countries. I refer of course to Lancelot, hero of the Arthurian saga. In his person eros makes trial by arms against phileo—and won. The victory marks a watershed in Western literature. For the first time, love for a woman becomes more important than love for a brother in arms. It is as though Briseis has replaced Patroclus in the heart of Achilles.

Arthur and Lancelot have the sort of phileo love for one another which can easily be traced back to antique models, though it is complicated by the Feudal notion of lordship. Arthur and Lancelot are heroes, the flowers of knighthood. Their relationship is the Round Table’s seal and symbol. But Lancelot also loves Guinevere, and this love is thoroughly erotic. Arthur is Lancelot’s lord, and yet Guinevere is his lady. Both demand his undivided loyalty. The whole story turns on conflict between these loves. Lancelot performs deeds of valor, but one never knows whether they are achieved for his own glory, for the renown of Arthur and his court, or in order to make Lancelot worthy of the Queen’s love. Is it the knight’s reputation which is being enhanced, or is it the fame of his lady? Some versions say one thing, and some another. The saga as it develops is filled with contradictions and contrasting motives, evidence of internal strife. Lancelot is easily the most complex character, and readers can see embodied in him the agony of change. Eventually, eros conquers. The Round Table is thrown down, and although the lovers spend their remaining days separated and in mourning for it, their sorrow cannot alter the fact that happiness has been redefined, and the focus of heroes has unalterably swung round. Henceforward, the ideal hero will face towards his lady.

It is emphatically the new definition of happiness which survived to make such a distinction between that ancient era and the post-Languedoc ages. Some trappings of courtly love have been lost. Fictional heroes no longer grovel at the feet of their ladies, and the woman’s slightest whim is not now law. Other elements of the Arthurian remain: politeness is still considered to include special attention to the comfort and preferences of ladies. But no matter which conventions are retained or discarded, eros has turned the head of every hero. He is no longer considered heroic who has not attained a satisfying romantic relationship.

It is worth noting here that eros did not merely assume the role of phileo in literature. It vaulted higher, and ascended to the place of absolute primacy. Phileo had been an accompaniment on the way to the temple of Nike; eros transformed Nike into Venus. This is why Lewis writes that, in order to imagine love from the perspective of the ancient world, we must “wipe out of our minds, for a moment, nearly all that makes the food both of modern sentimentality and modern cynicism. We must conceive a world emptied of that ideal of ‘happiness’—a happiness grounded in successful romantic love—which still supplies the motive of our popular fiction” (Allegory 4). Love in ancient literature, he says, “seldom rises above the levels of merry sensuality or domestic comfort, except to be treated as a tragic madness” (Allegory 4). Of course, it is far different today.

In serious modern narrative we find that eros is the most common theme (Allegory 3), and this theme can be traced back to courtly love, through Chaucer and Petrarch and Shakespeare, through the Chevalier poets and Scott and Tennyson and dozens of other writers. A glance at great works of the eighteenth and nineteenth century are enough to prove the impact of happy romantic love as an ideal. We find it in Tess of the D’Urbevilles and Great Expectations, in Idylls of the King and The Lady of the Lake, in the works of Austen and the poems of Donne, in Anna Karenina and The Sun Also Rises. As Lewis remarks, Romeo and Juliet have innumerable counterparts in modern fiction (Four Loves 57). Consider West Side Story as a single example.

It is not that ancient literature was devoid of eros. The loves of Dido and Penelope were as real as any other element in the Aeneid and the Odyssey, but eros was never central or primary. In fact, I have attempted to show that none of the loves were primary in great ancient works (with the Bible as a very important exception). What occurred at the birth of courtly love, therefore, was a shift so fundamental that it altered the trend of human ideals, and bent the Western mind in a new direction. Whether it is a better direction is arguable: after all, Nike and Venus are both idols. But what seems clear is that the goddesses were exchanged, beginning at the end of the eleventh century, and that the priests who did it were citizens of Languedoc.

That's enough to take in for now. For my next trick, I will comment on the effect which this redefinition of happiness seems to have had on our culture in general, and on my generation in particular.