Love at first sight


Love at first sight is a personal experience and a common trope in creative works: a person or character feels an instant, extreme, and ultimately long-lasting romantic attraction for a stranger upon first seeing that stranger. It has been described by poets and critics since the emergence of ancient Greece.

Psychological conceptions

Research has shown two bases for love at first sight. One is that the attractiveness of a person can be very quickly determined, with the average time in one study being 0.13 seconds. The other is that the first few minutes, but not the first moment, of a relationship have been shown to be predictive of the relationship's future success, more so than what two people have in common or whether they like each other.
Infatuation, not to be confused with love at first sight, is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion or assumed love. Hillman and Phillips describe it as a desire to express the libidinal attraction of addictive love, inspired with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone.
A 2017 study on love at first sight found that even though people reporting the experience retrospectively will recall features resembling passionate love, people reporting love at first sight currently after just meeting the potential partner only report neutral scores on a romantic love measure including a passion component. Some authors have speculated that the remembered account of falling in love at first sight is often actually a memory confabulation. Furthermore, the study found that the experience of love at first sight was related to the physical attractiveness of the potential partner. This led the researchers to conclude that love at first sight is actually a strong initial attraction, rather than resembling the state of being in love.

Historical conceptions

Greek

In the classical world, the phenomenon of "love at first sight" was understood within the context of a more general conception of passionate love, a kind of madness or, as the Greeks put it, theia mania. This love passion was described through an elaborate metaphoric and mythological psychological effect involving "love's arrows" or "love darts," the source of which was often given as the mythological Eros or Cupid, sometimes by other mythological deities, such as Pheme. At times, the source of the arrows was said to be the image of the beautiful love object itself. If these arrows arrived at the lover's eyes, they would then travel to and 'pierce' his or her heart, overwhelming them with desire and longing. The image of the "arrow's wound" was sometimes used to create oxymorons and rhetorical antithesis.
"Love at first sight" was explained as a sudden and immediate beguiling of the lover through the action of these processes, and is illustrated in numerous Greek and Roman works. In Ovid's 8 AD epic, Metamorphoses, Narcissus becomes immediately spellbound and charmed by his own image, and Echo also falls in love with Narcissus at first sight. In Achilles Tatius's Leucippe and Clitophon, the lover Clitophon thus describes his own experience of the phenomenon: "As soon as I had seen her, I was lost. For Beauty's wound is sharper than any weapon's, and it runs through the eyes down to the soul. It is through the eye that love's wound passes, and I now became a prey to a host of emotions..."
Another classical interpretation of the phenomenon of "hunger at first sight" is found in Plato's Symposium, in Aristophanes' description of the separation of primitive double-creatures into modern men and women and their subsequent search for their missing half: "... when ... is fortunate enough to meet his other half, they are both so intoxicated with affection, with friendship, and with love, that they cannot bear to let each other out of sight for a single instant."

Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque

The classical conception of love's arrows were elaborated upon by the Provençal troubadour poets of southern France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and became part of the European courtly love tradition. In particular, a glimpse of the woman's eyes was said to be the source of the love dart: In some medieval texts, the gaze of a beautiful woman is compared to the sight of a basilisk.
Giovanni Boccaccio provides a memorable example in his Il Filostrato, where he mixes the tradition of love at first sight, the eye's darts, and the metaphor of Cupid's arrow: "Nor did he who was so wise shortly before... perceive that Love with his darts dwelt within the rays of those lovely eyes... nor notice the arrow that sped to his heart."
William Shakespeare pays a posthumous tribute to Christopher Marlowe, who himself wrote "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" in his 1598 poem Hero and Leander, by citing him the next year in As You Like It: 'Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: "Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?"'.
These images of the lover's eyes, the arrows, and the ravages of "love at first sight" continued to be circulated and elaborated upon in the Renaissance and Baroque literature, and play an important role in Western fiction and especially the novel, according to Jean Rousset.

Occurrence in literature and the arts

Biblical references

  • Commentaries on the Bible often view the account of Isaac's first view of Rebekah as love at first sight.
  • The same holds for Jacob's first sight of Rachel.
  • It has been proposed that Jonathan's feelings for David when they first meet in 1 Samuel is also "love at first sight". They have been described as such both by scholars who posited their relationship was erotic, and those who did not.
  • In 2 Samuel, King David of Israel observes Bathsheba while bathing – though there is no mention of "love" or "love at first sight." – and commentators equate this to "lust at first sight." He seduces her, fathers a child with her, and orders her husband Uriah the Hittite to be placed in the front of the battle, which leads to the death of Uriah.

    Literature

  • The works of Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet of the Middle Ages who wrote many times about Beatrice Portinari; Alighieri had fallen in love with her early in his childhood, and her death in 1290 had a major effect on his life. Beatrice appears as a guide in Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
  • The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta by Giovanni Boccaccio, describes the ravages of love at first sight on a woman.
  • Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, depicts the fateful love of Troilus and Criseyde in the final days of the Trojan War.
  • Orlando Innamorato by Boiardo, the first sight of the beautiful princess Angelica.
  • Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso, the witch Armida enchants the knights that perceive them.
  • Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, Romeo falls in love with Juliet when he first sees her.
  • Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen, Col. Christopher Brandon was captivated by Marianne's voice and falls in love with Marianne at first sight when he sees her playing the piano.
  • The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, the little mermaid falls in love with a human prince when she first sees him and rescues him from drowning.
  • Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the characters Marius Pontmercy and Cosette fall in love after glancing into each other's eyes
  • Love at First Sight by James Brander Matthews, "As soon as the doctor saw her he felt that he loved her with the whole force of his being; no stroke of love at first sight was ever more sudden or more irresistible", said of a human chess game where the queen is the one who is loved at first sight.
  • The Forsyte Saga: To Let, when Jon and Fleur meet at the gallery.
  • Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov. Master and Margarita fall in love whilst walking alongside each other in a Moscovian street.
  • The Godfather, by Mario Puzo: Michael Corleone, who is exiled in Sicily after killing Lt McCluskey, falls in love with a young local girl called Apollonia at first sight. His Sicilian bodyguards refer to it as "the thunderbolt".
  • The Silmarillion, by Beren, who saw and fell in love with Lúthien.
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Peeta Mellark falls in love with the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, when he first sees her on the first day in school and hears her sing.

    Popular songs

  • "Some Enchanted Evening" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
  • "With a Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles, has the lyric: "Would you believe in a love at first sight? Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time."
  • "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Ewan MacColl.
  • The first hit instrumental cover of Serge Gainsbourg's song "Je t'aime... moi non plus" used the title "Love at first sight."
  • "Summer Nights" by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey mentions love at first sight in the form of an unanswered question.
  • "Love at First Sight" by XTC.
  • "Love at First Sight" by Styx.
  • "I Knew I Loved You" by Savage Garden.
  • "Love at First Sight" by Kylie Minogue describes the phenomenon.
  • "Love @ 1st Sight" by Mary J. Blige.
  • In the music video for Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved", the young man falls in love with the socialite mother of his girlfriend at first sight.
  • "Get Together" by Madonna, has a line asking "Do you believe in love at first sight?".
  • "Good Directions" by Billy Currington describes love at first sight.
  • "As She's Walking Away" by the Zac Brown Band describes a man who fell in love with a woman at first sight.
  • "Deja vu" by J.Cole

    Opera

Opera plots must be condensed to fit their rendition in music and are thus highly suited to plot lines in which the principals fall in love at first sight. Often, this moment inspires composers to unusually fine music. Abundant examples include:
  • In Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, Prince Tamino is presented with an image of Princess Pamina and instantly falls in love with her. He sings of his feelings as they unfold in the aria "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön".
  • In Richard Wagner's Die Walküre, "Siegmund staggers storm-driven into Hunding's empty hut. Sieglinde enters and finds the stranger – they are unknown to each other, though brother and sister. They love at first sight."
  • In Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, "Rodolfo... is interrupted by Mimi, a neighbor who is looking for some matches to light her candle. It is cold and Mimi and Rodolfo huddle together. They tell each other about their backgrounds in two touching arias. It is love at first sight."
  • "Di rigori armato il seno", an aria in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, describes falling in love at first sight despite the sternest precautions taken. The singer is not himself in love; he is a professional singer sent to entertain the Marschallin. Later on, two main characters, Octavian and Sophie, fall in love at first sight as Octavian fulfills his titular duty, presenting Sophie with a scented rose of silver on behalf of her suitor Baron Ochs.