Summary: Romanticism and Romantic Love in Wuthering Heights

Romanic love may be over excessive to over-compensate the escapists (the authors) emotional
capacity in conjunction to their imagination. Love may be portrayed as a supernatural force that lies
outside of morality and thus is other worldly which when engaged on Earth, cannot be sustained =-
ending in a heinous inferno. The view point of Goethe attempts to portray romantic passion in the
language of Romanticism failing to make either tragedy or the love convincing.
Passion is a word in association to love which can be potrayed as a weak thing, nourished for the
sake of anguished ornamentation- the Byronic Hero may have passion just for the sake of having it.
This follows on to the idea of torment which idealises that their is depth in pain- that it is the
ultimate reassurance of love- that one shall suffer willingly for another- contributing to tragic love
Wuthering Heights is an exploration of romantic love undertaken by the Romantic imagination
underpinning destructive elements within the magnetism of anguish and passion- whereby death is
the old Romantic solution.
The relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff is the manifestation of the human interaction with
nature at its extremities, one connection so overwhelming it embodies the desire to retune
to the mindless unity of nature to amend the prolonged separation through the effects of
society and sophistication. It is a love that demands the unity of souls, circumstances on
earth inhibit this process and one in which earthy love cannot suffice.
A characters destructive and self destructive intent is based on the ideology that passion
involves grievous suffering which they generate from the intensity of issues.
The impulse to destroy or rather, the capacity to value something only in its absence gives
rise to the Romantic tragedy of love.
Pain and tragedy stems from the artists imagination and Emily brings this forth in the
characters that relish pain the Romantic imagination brings evolution to seemingly irrational
passion giving it a new depth and new criticism.
The reality of passion, insists that it is a force abiding its own laws of existence as it cannot
be denied or treated lightly- everyone is subject to its laws.
World of the Romantic disappointment and isolation bequeaths the Romantic figure- whom
supposes that suffering on the account for another is a good excuse for poignant ornamentation-
character building/beneficial- believing that it is only by experiencing the intensive emotions that
one can be classified as a higher being- as there is Romantic pride in the strength of emotion- being
ill of good.
Critics commented that the work was without moral design/ disregard of society as it is antagonised
being the death of many characters. Heathcliff described as demonic and inhuman i did not feel as
if I were in the company of a creature of my own species- aspects of passion- the moral design was
criticised by its particular philosophy rather that the absence of any design. Passion cannot be seen
as a warm, tender and full of the goodness of life it is only extreme. Rather single minded which is
relentless embodied by Heathcliff, his own moral law is passions law. Ordinary love is thought to
redeem destructive impulses, but in Heathcliffs case it is his love for Catherine which motivates his
cruelty. i.e. he can tolerate Hindleys degradationbut it is by Catherines alleviation that when
Heathcliff is without her, he desperately find pathways to console Catherine- who is greedy for
emotions, considering the union with Linton as a completion of her societal expectations which
cannot suppass the inextricable entwine of her soul with Healthcliff. Hareton becomes the object of
revenge after Hindley dies, but he cannot overcome his affection for him.
Catherine and Heaths love is terrible and valuable, there is no divinity or even nobility about it and
most of all it lacks Human Ideals.
It is defined by rigidly personal, specific connection forged by habit, without illusion (true) without
respect out of familiarly, that defies the notion of separation. The union reaches the point of a
match in death which is seen as a point towards which unalterable forces are moving. Catherines
language is self indulgent, she is fighting to understand the depth of her attachment to Heath.
She dreams that she is in heaven and away from WH that she weeps- not satisfied with the
level of subconscious of the ordinary content with the stages of life to sustain sublime
Romance. Heath sees heaven as death and union with Catherine.
The linton marriage does is considered a paltry thing in constrast to his enduring love which
binds him to cath. i had more reason to cry then she his sole existence is determined to
serve the need of Catherine and thus by grieving her he can remind her of that attachment
when she tries to deny it.
It is a means of punishment and reassurance, prides refuge when their union seems
threatened, considering that he can sympathize with her pain even though it stems from her
attempt to deny him. The tension of their of their grieving eachother is explosive when it
outdates the comparative safety of childhood behaviour.
Their naturally forged reunion has been broken by catherines marriage and now they must struggle
for possession of one another. This struggle is a desperate attack, they cannot be gentle with
eachother, their violent emotions for each other leave no room for feeble emotions. Catherine
wants Heath to suffer as it is the only confirmation and reassurance of his love even during death.
The love becomes a lurid struggle for possession because of its intensiveness and ferocity. The pain
they inflict on eachother is therefore a straightforward expression of love- a way to make a physical
imprint on the other since all their emotions have no physical matter. Heath is lodged in caths heart
why do you betray your own heart... you have killed yourself and thus killed Heath as they are
both entwined. Caths passion was the reality that the marriage had no reality.
Their shared interests are themselves, and the strength of the attachment is expressed in dramatic
episodes spawn from their self denial of eachother but in effective Romantic rhetoric. The Romantic
exaggeration is effective because the o=point is not to pull heart strings but reveal the unmovable
strength of grief and passion-a dangerous concoction. As Catherines despair stems from her
transverse out of childhood, the fantasy evokes impatience rather than compassion as she id
responsible for this harsh transformation, she herself has removed herself from WH and with it
displaced Heath. Her longing rips up reality and fires her dreams with a deathly life. Edgars
interjections are invalid, as they are not expressed with passion- aggravating Catherine. Edgar
doesnt wish for Catherines soul to haunt him- Catherine would have despised his resignation and
hopeful aspiring and melancholy sweeter than common joy. Linton sister Isabella misunderstands
passion and cruel reality destroys her.
The desire to return to the childhood sanctuary is a wish for regression and stagnation as is her wish
for death, and in adulthood this death is integrally connected to the avenue of her love for heath.
Heath hurts her because she sees how much she has hurt him and how she has damaged herself.
Cath wishes for an impossible freedom from emotional turmoil and her own excessive demands.
Heath shares her desire for death but does not want to die to regain a lost glorious world but to
accompany Catherine would you like to live with your soul in the grave? With her soul in the grave
it cannot be encumbered by her own true nature as she can only be free to identity with passion
alone.
The inability to trust reality stems froma nervous intensity which is never resolved. Her satisfaction
of her longing will be explosive in its sustenance. Only death is deep and dark enough to contain the
shocl of fulfilment and bring continuing peace that must follow that fulfilment. :..souls bliss kills my
body, but does not satisfy itself- heath wants his soul to be content so he can die. Heath want
death- it is free, a finer form of life, it alone can sustain the exultation whose intensity and
continuation are thwarted and deflected in life.- There is no hit that in another paradigm if the world
was kinder to them they would have a life together but this is only a story of suffering- the ending
prophetesses the match of Cath and Heath is contains too much tension. However the bond shared
is a diversion to the alternative destructive love, Romantic love is the effort to contain the vitality of
first love and regenerating it into something which may survive in this life. Young Cathy is different
to her mother as she witnesses and empathises with others when she hurts them, and she may
suffer at the hands of another but she does not need to quench revenge. She is the complete
reversal of her mothers feelings, as she notices the turmoil of others as she quarrels with them
whereas her mothers mind was engulfed in rage she could only see that others were hurting her.
Cathy + Hareton is like a less dangerous bond of Cath+ Heath their attachment will not confuse them
as they are definite cousins. Playfulness and lightness is connected to the folly of childhood, Cath
and Heath destroy unintentionally the hope of continuing an easy and natural expression of love as
the strength if attachment mutates into a Romantic death-ridden passion. Intense emotions demand
to be felt and can only be measured in suffering as the next generation is burdened by the
unresolved conflicts of their parents, as Emily denies the debilitating aspect of conventional
Romantic picture. Reality as it can be trufully displayed and the possible hope to revive emotion
gives strength to the a Romantic tragedy of cath and Heath but happiness to Cath and Hareton.
Having showed the harsh and potency of Romantic Passion concludes by showing a love which is
measured without pain, suffering or tension, revealing the spectrum of love