Eco e Narciso: ressonâncias do amor romântico na contemporaneidade

Abstract

This study is dedicated to the psychoanalytical analysis of the ideals of romantic love and its repercussions on the contemporary era. Through the reading of works in the field of human sciences, specially of sociology, and the advances of contemporary psychoanalysis, we investigate the possibility that the reminiscences of romantic love might still be present in our current society. Romantic love is a concept, an invention, such as mathematics or the wheel; it does not regard only to the sensorial and the emotional experience of love, but it carries within itself a social construct, underlying to those experiences. Indeed, the ideals of romantic love have widely influenced the bourgeoisie, in the place of an historical concept, serving as an universal model to all western cultures. With such a heavy presence on culture and popular imagery, romantic love became a standard: until today, "being romantic" means to love with devotion. When we searched for recent psychoanalytic literature on the subject of love, we found that the majority of studies agreed to our primary hypothesis-that romantic aspects coexist with the multiplicity of experiences offered by contemporaneity; all mentions to romantic love seemed to take the persistence of romanticism as an assumption, corroborating with our analysis. We discussed the process of downfall of the father figure, hegemonic on the modern period, and how it gave place to the cult of the self, to the mainly narcissistic objetal investments, and to an emptiness and lack of historicity on the contemporary people. However, even in decay, and given that it is making way to new forms of commitment-such as polyamorous, open relationships and non-monogamous relationships-romantic love still remains, as an echo, on postmodern subjectivity, as a soothing hope, as salvation against the danger and instability of the contemporary world.