Saturday, February 21, 2015

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare says, "Love looks not with the eyes" How is this accurate and inaccurate?

The quote you mention is from Act I, Scene 1 of this
play.  The quote is part of a soliloquy spoken by Helena.  The line you cite and the
next one are:


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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted
blind.



If you are asking
simply about whether love truly does "look" with the mind rather than the eyes, then
this is a matter of your opinion.  These lines are really saying that a person in love
perceives things in a way that is not really backed by reality.  They see what their
heart and mind want to see, not what is really there.  Is this true in your opinion? 
Think about the ways in which you look at people you love and ask yourself that
question.


I would argue that this is mostly accurate. 
People who are in love see their lover in an idealized way.   They tend to overlook
faults and to see their lover in the most attractive possible light.  When we fall in
love, we tend to think that that other person is perfect.  Things about them that annoy
others might seem cute to us.  We excuse their faults because we are in love. 
Therefore, I would argue that this is an accurate statement of what we are like when we
first fall in love.


However, it is not so accurate when we
have been in love a while.  We still love our lovers, but we are more realistic about
them.  We know they have faults but we love them anyway (rather than being blind to
their faults).


Overall, then, this statement is accurate
about people who are first falling in love but is less accurate about people who have
been in love a while.

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