Love in Literature: Fragments of the Mosaic

By Mariam Bukia

Love in Literature: Fragments of the Mosaic

At the center of the eternal cycle of human experience, thought, and, consequently, its

reflective instrument – literature – among all other emotions stands love, which

most often draws the sun of inspiration and assumes a thousand shadows and

interpretations in world literature, and through the lens of readers’ perception –

within the mind.

For a writer, the existence of such an idea is a vital resource – one that, by its

nature, is never stable, static, or permanently grasped; one woven with the delicate

fabric of emotions and, at the same time, capable of being as strong as granite or as

pliable and malleable as braes, love, without resistance and compromise, is a four-

leaf clover and a bit of fantasy or carelessness.

The theme of love in literature is so frequently explored, repeated, and

recognizable – like a dandelion in a field – and the impact of works created on this

topic may be fleeting and fragile, yet still pleasant.

A glance across the wide spectrum of love stories, aligned chronologically along

the timeline, is enough to affirm that love in literature has never been a feeling

independent of time, physical setting, or broader context. The quality of life,

cultural space, collective imagination, social mood, everyday tendencies, and

political background have always been the indirect chisel carving the sapphire of

love in the multilayered, gray mine of the human soul.

In the twentieth century – following the universal upheaval of world war – in

societies that were desperate yet still alive, stripped of trust, inert and barren like

metal furniture, yet swinging like a pendulum around the axis of life’s simple

human and difficult-to-fulfill needs, the anti-fascist writer Erich Maria Remarque

tells the reader of the main character’s love in Three Comrades.. Here, love is brief

– like a life cut short – and enduring, like a life fully felt until the final minute of

its allotted term, when every offered moment was experienced with the intensity

of an earthquake, each instant savored like nectar, and being drunk with experience

was never considered enough. Robert embodies in this love the mist of unfulfilled

dreams – visible, tangible, and fleeting all at the same time – because there exists a

type of love that may never become stable, yet will always echo in the memory’s

hearing like seashells gathered from the shore, ultimately bearing the names of

both death and eternal trace.

Sometimes, in the form of love, a basket of grace descends from the sky for a

human being, to illuminate the dim corners, for tightly drawn curtains to be opened

shyly, and for light to bow before your window.

Love in the Time of Cholera is a book that aptly describes love’s ability to hide for

many seasons and then burst into bloom one spring, regardless of whether the skin

has wrinkled or the sight has dimmed. Here, the reader encounters the small

tributaries of love’s adventure, which life distributes with a spontaneous plan,

seemingly redirecting its course with childlike carelessness.

In contemporary literature, love is perceived more delicately, as in Gayle Forman’s

book If I Stay, and greater emphasis is placed on personal, subjective feelings.

About Mariam Bukia:

Mariam Bukia (she/her) is a 16-year-old student from Georgia. She is an ambitious and active individual who views the world as a playground of unlimited possibilities. Her professional journey spans multiple roles, including general editor, blog writer, general manager, project manager, PR manager, young teacher, head of the personnel department, book club leader, and speaker in educational organizations. As a writer of poems and stories, she nourishes the garden of her thoughts and ideas, letting creativity bloom like a flower.