While I have not yet made it through the entire thing, I wanted to take a little time to talk about the first few paragraphs of "The Bottom Translation" of A Midsummer Night's Dream; namely, the distinction between love, and desire.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind according to Helena in her rant about love and madness.
Does desire also look with “mind,” and not with “the eyes”? Titania awakens from Pier dream, looks at the monster, and desires him. When Lysander and Demetrius awaken, they see only a girl’s body, and desire it. Is desire “blind” and love “seeing”? Or is love “blind” and desire “seeing”? This essay asks.
Frankly, I believe that Helena is correct in her statement; however I don't think that she is meaning to talk about actual love. True love looks with the heart as well as the mind. It is seeing, because it is complete truth, and honesty. It is desire that is blindness. Love is a feeling but also a sincere commitment - it is not something that can be created from air, or changed with drugs overnight. Infatuation, though, is a different matter; it is purely chemical. People fall in and out of this quite often; when the "high" fades, it leaves its victim empty and in withdrawals. Whereas love has the potential to result in "sacred marriage", infatuation leads to only a futile, fleeting attempt at forever. Trusting in infatuation causes nothing but heartache and hurt, because infatuation is purely selfish. Sadly, modern society often fails to recognize this difference...
-AS
Dostoevsky said that reason is the slave of passion
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