violaimelesmots, le blog qui aime les mots

Literature is ripe with beautiful love stories. Love is one of the main ingredients of any good novel simply because love is the backbone of our lives. In order to celebrate all lovers as Saint-Valentine's day is approaching, I would like to shine a light on some of the most famous lovers in literature.

Born out of the imagination and the pen of one of the most well-known playwright of all time (William Shakespeare is obviously the one I'm evoking), the couple formed by Romeo and Juliet is undoubtedly the most tragic one. Their love is so strong that they preferred death to separation.

Paul and Virginia's fate (Paul and Virginia, Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre) is no more enviable. Their pure and juvenile love will not resist the tempest of life and will sink in the abyss off the coast of the Isle of France (now Mauritius).

As for Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara, the terrible lovers of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, their destiny is more flexible since the end of the story is given as a reader's choice. Scarlet has severely tested Rhett's love but she has matured and eventually understood that he was his real and only love ; as I can't stand impossible love stories, I prefer a happy ending. After all 'A woman's will is God's will' :

With the spirit of her people who would not know defeat, even when it stared them in the face, she raised her chin. She could get Rhett back. She knew she could. There had never been a man she couldn't get, once she set her mind upon him. "I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day." (Last Lines of the novel)

Esmeralda (Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo) swept many men off their feet ! But the most touching and loveable is probably Quasimodo who will have himself die by his beloved's body.

So many tragic love stories ! Let's get better vibes back in the Antiquity with Ulysses and Penelope's unflinching love. Albeit separation was the hallmark of their love story, it will but reinforce the bond that links them. Despite time and obstacles, Ulysses and Penelope will be reunited forever...at least in the collective memory.

If in literature, all love stories are not happy, they are, nonetheless, beautiful enough to make one cry.