Eros Female Souls Thriving And Crumbling - 1735 Words

Eros: Female Souls Thriving and Crumbling The term â€Å"Eros,† referring to passionate love in English, has long been the mainstream of themes in drama, literature, arts, and cinematic media. The fascinating power of love has been exhaustively publicized, and the pursuit of love is diffused in streets and lanes. Conversely, in ancient times, many poets, especially Virgil, Ovid and Apuleius, described eros as such an evil spirit that it will destroy the female soul thoroughly, except for the one in Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche. Even if taking into account the historical background of a patriarchal community and therefore the esteemed male dominance, the particular case of Psyche’s surviving and even thriving her encounter with eros†¦show more content†¦Likewise, in Virgil’s Aeneid, when Dido falls in love with Aeneas, it is evident that she is largely affected by his handsome look and also his fames. Both of the external features can be misleading because it is easy to manipula te them deliberately if needed. Meanwhile, the kind of love resulting only from the appreciation of outside beauty and hearsay is unreliable as well as questionable, in that novelty will wear off soon. The desire to possess the gorgeousness does not equal the determination to cherish it forever. That is to say, the type of love is unstable and easy to break into pieces. Different from Dido in the Aeneid and those female characters in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Psyche doesn’t make her judgement of her lover according to his appearance. The fact that Psyche can only hear and touch her husband but not see him ensures that her initial cognition and assessment of him are established in their communication to a huge extend. As a matter of fact, the way a person communicates is a significant reflection of his/her mindset; hence, through their conversations, Psyche is able to understand the internal world of his lover and builds up an empathetic connection with him. One exam ple would be that Psyche begs Cupid to bring her sisters and she says that,