Epic Love Stories
As the month of luuurve descends upon us, swathed in red organza and dripping velvet hearts, giggly school girls eagerly await the 14th to discover how many secret admirers they have ensnared. Young lovers gaze ever more lovingly into each other’s eyes, and the rest of us (jaded and cynical perhaps) tut-tut about how real love need not be rewarded with a Hallmark card. Deep down inside, though, we are all secretly touched by those rare love stories that span the test of time – epic tales of love that inspire in all of us the desire for this most beautiful of human conditions.
Literary Lovers
Long before astute movie makers had audiences sniffling into tissues over a romantic onscreen kiss, epic love stories were the realm of literature, with some stories so powerful that centuries later they still top our favourite lovers’ lists.
The 8th century epic poem The Odyssey is one of the earliest extant works of Western literature. Not surprisingly then, that it contains one of the earliest epic love stories ever told – that of Penelope and Odysseus.
After ten years of fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus embarks on his epic ten year journey back to Ithaca. Penelope, having not seen her husband for 20 years and fearing him dead, nonetheless waits patiently for his return, desperately trying to rebuff the advances of the 117 suitors who have moved into her palace. In the end, Penelope’s loyalty is rewarded when her husband finally returns to Ithaca, kills her pesky suitors and is reunited with her. Their love story is a testament to the power of devotion and faithfulness – and certainly puts the modern long distance relationship firmly into perspective!
Possibly the most famous love story of all time – certainly one of Shakespeare’s most popular and most often performed plays – Romeo and Juliet certainly has it all. Star-crossed young lovers, love at first sight, feuding families (everyone’s worst nightmare of the evil in-laws!), clandestine meetings, elopement and secret marriages, sex, duels, and love suicide. While the play is ultimately a tragedy, its overarching theme is one of love. Young, impulsive, rash love indeed, but the kind of all-encompassing love that is the stuff of many a dream and fantasy – with a happier ending of course.
Silver Screen Suitors
While “rom coms” have become as much a movie-going staple as popcorn, epic love stories still have the power to entrance an audience, and none more so than some of the all-time classics from the early days of the silver screen.
Dubbed by the American Film Institute as one of the most romantic movies of all time, 1957’s An Affair to Remember tells the story of Nickie and Terry – a couple who fall in love, while each is engaged to somebody else. They agree to meet in six months’ time on top of the Empire State Building – if they have managed to ditch their fiancés, that is. Nickie shows up, but Terry is involved in a car accident which leaves her paralysed.
Not wanting to burden Nickie with her handicap, Terry never tells him of her accident, and he – feeling rejected – continues his life without her. A year later the two inevitably bump into each other, and in a poignant and dramatic finale everything is eventually revealed and the two are romantically reunited – a classic tale of love triumphing over all the obstacles fate throws at it.
The romantic 1942 drama Casablanca still regularly tops critics’ lists as one of the greatest films of all time – not least of all because of the complicated love story between its two leads, Rick and Ilsa. Rick is torn between his feelings for his ex-lover Ilsa and her request to help her and her husband escape Casablanca.
The ex-lovers finally admit to still loving each other and the escape plan is set in place for Ilsa’s husband to leave Casablanca alone. However, at the last minute, Rick forces Ilsa to join her husband and escape to a better life. While the film ends with the two lovers separated by war, it is a guaranteed tear jerker that has had generations of women swooning over Rick’s selfless final act of love.
Real Life Romances
Perhaps the best of all epic love stories are the ones that come to us straight from the pages of history. After all, these are the ones that give us hope that such love may indeed also happen to us.
A spinster at 38 and suffering from a mystery illness that left her bedridden for many months, the last thing poet Elizabeth Barrett expected to find was love – and certainly not with a man six years her junior. However, as the correspondence between her and fellow poet Robert Browning continued, their friendship blossomed into romance and the two wrote nearly 600 (very romantic) letters to each other over their 20 month courtship.
After the couple’s first face-to-face meeting, Robert proposed marriage and they eloped and made a life for themselves in Italy. During their 15 years together – before Elizabeth died in Robert’s arms – both poets produced some of their finest work. This includes Elizabeth’s Sonnets from the Portuguese – a sequence of love sonnets addressed to her husband. And today, who doesn’t know the line from one of her most famous sonnets: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways?”
When American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a lavish ceremony in April 1956, the world watched spell bound. Not only was this a love story, but it was a real-life fairy tale too.
20,000 of Monaco’s 32,000-strong population lined the streets to welcome Princess Grace when she arrived for her wedding, and over 30 million people watched the ceremony on television. When she died in a car accident in 1982, the world mourned with Rainier, who was so deeply affected by her passing that he remained unmarried until his own death in 2005. Princess Grace, however, remains one of the best examples that fairy tales do sometimes come true, and that there is indeed a prince out there for every princess.
And so here’s hoping that during this month of love you find yours, and create a couple of epic love stories of your own.
Story by Nicky Furniss
