Career: Profesorado de Inglés.

Subject: Prácticas discursivas de la comunicación escrita IV.

Teacher: Strione, Belén.

Student: Navarro, Juan Gabriel.

Assignment: Argumentative essay “Love, How It Has Changed Throughout the Years”

Love is a strong feeling of affection that takes numerous forms; however, the most prominent
of them is, undoubtedly, romantic love. Even though some may argue that romantic love is static
or immutable, it has in fact evolved throughout the centuries, shaping and being shaped by
different societies. In this essay, I shall analyse how love in the Western world transitioned from
a feeling that was ruled by societal norms to becoming a sentiment that can be expressed with
much more freedom and self-determination.

For most of history, custom dictated that the formation of a couple was not necessarily the
result of love. Little did love matter in the choice of a life-long mate, as marriages were contracts
between two families aimed at producing offspring and increasing the family wealth. What is
more, marriage was a mandatory step in the life of any respectable citizen. So much so that even
men such as emperor Caligula or Hadrian, whom we would call homosexual today, had wives
and children to adjust to this social rule.

The ancient custom outlived the end of the classical world and arranged couples were still the
norm in the High Middle Ages, when a concept known as ‘courtly love’ emerged in Western
literature. Though not widely practised in real life, courtly love foreshadowed the romantic
values. It was an idealized and often forbidden bond between a knight and his mistress, marked
by devotion, chivalry, and poetic expressions of longing (Kabir, Syed Raid. 2023). This is
exemplified, albeit mockingly, by Don Quixote’s passion for Dulcinea in Cervantes’ famous
novel.

With the dawn of the modern era, antique customs were abandoned in favour of new ideas
regarding love. Works such as Romeo and Juliet, which questioned the interference of family(E)
in relationships and advocated for lovers’ freedom, became popular. Love as a transformative
force was also advocated by romantic poets such as Lord Byron, who wrote For the romantic
poets (E), the pursue(WF) of happiness and pleasure was key. I would argue that love nowadays
is still deeply influenced on(WW) this romantic notion. Both men and women seek that one
perfect partner with whom to experience passion
Love, or at least its role in human activity, is anything but unchangeable. We know that much
of the aforementioned romantic notion of love has survived until the current post-modern period,
how it will develop in the future, it is for time to decide.

Number of words:

Syed Rafid Kabir, “Courtly Love: An Idealized and Unattainable Love”, History Cooperative,
July 6, 2023, https://historycooperative.org/courtly-love/. Accessed April 3, 2024.

GOOD