For Gits and Shiggles: The Darkness Vs Ovid and Chaucer
How's it going internet? Welcome to the Late Night English Blog! I'm your host and semi-avid human being Andy Ferguson and tonight we'll be taking things easy. Go ahead, take a load off.. I'll try to keep the behemoth text blocks to a minimum. Tonight, we'll comparing/contrasting views of sexuality in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Chaucer's The Wife of Bath with, quite possibly my favorite song ever, The Darkness' "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." If you haven't heard the song, no sweat.
Here's a video of it complete with lyrics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZtcz4WVBGg).
Feel free to listen to the song while you read. God knows I am.
In Metamorphoses, particularly in the story of Apollo and Daphne, Ovid characterizes sexuality as something as unavoidable and infectious as a wound from a marksman. Sound cheesy? Well, that doesn't even come close to what Apollo said about it to Daphne: "My aim is certain, but an arrow truer than mine, has wounded my free heart! The whole world calls me the bringer of aid; medicine is my invention; my power is in herbs. But love cannot be healed by any herb, nor can the arts that cure others can heal their lord!" (734). Yikes.
However, as cheesy and contextually rapey it may sound, Apollo's thoughts on sexuality as being something inescapable and infectious are somewhat echoed in "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." Take the first verse, for example:
Can't explain all the feelings
that you're making me feel
My hearts in overdrive
and you're behind the steering wheel.
The same idea as the person in love being powerless in face of the one with whom they are enamored can be clearly seen here.
But what about the Wife of Bath? Well, her views are rather different: sex is choice. it's power. To have and enjoy sex and sexuality is to be empowered and satisfied. This sentiment is seen best when the Wife of Bath says "In wifehood, I will use my instrument as freely as my Maker has sent it. If I am unaccomadating to my husband, may God give me sorrow. My husband shall have it both evening and morning, whenever it pleases him to come forth and pay his debt. I will not stop. I will have a husband who will be both my debtor and servant," (29). Kinky stuff. The thought of sexuality and love as a choice and a pleasure can also be found in "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," (shocker) specifically in the second verse where it states:
I want to kiss you
Every minute, every hour, every day.
You got me in a spin
But everything is A.O.K.
here, the song retains to a certain degree that same powerlessness discussed in the first verse but gives it a kind of positive spin, if you will. Like "Sure, I'm powerless to you sexually but I still enjoy it and want to continue along with it."
Well that's it for tonight guys, gals, and non-binary pals. My caffeine supplies are running dangerously low and I haven't slept in days. Until next time. See ya!
Here's a video of it complete with lyrics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZtcz4WVBGg).
Feel free to listen to the song while you read. God knows I am.
In Metamorphoses, particularly in the story of Apollo and Daphne, Ovid characterizes sexuality as something as unavoidable and infectious as a wound from a marksman. Sound cheesy? Well, that doesn't even come close to what Apollo said about it to Daphne: "My aim is certain, but an arrow truer than mine, has wounded my free heart! The whole world calls me the bringer of aid; medicine is my invention; my power is in herbs. But love cannot be healed by any herb, nor can the arts that cure others can heal their lord!" (734). Yikes.
However, as cheesy and contextually rapey it may sound, Apollo's thoughts on sexuality as being something inescapable and infectious are somewhat echoed in "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." Take the first verse, for example:
Can't explain all the feelings
that you're making me feel
My hearts in overdrive
and you're behind the steering wheel.
The same idea as the person in love being powerless in face of the one with whom they are enamored can be clearly seen here.
But what about the Wife of Bath? Well, her views are rather different: sex is choice. it's power. To have and enjoy sex and sexuality is to be empowered and satisfied. This sentiment is seen best when the Wife of Bath says "In wifehood, I will use my instrument as freely as my Maker has sent it. If I am unaccomadating to my husband, may God give me sorrow. My husband shall have it both evening and morning, whenever it pleases him to come forth and pay his debt. I will not stop. I will have a husband who will be both my debtor and servant," (29). Kinky stuff. The thought of sexuality and love as a choice and a pleasure can also be found in "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," (shocker) specifically in the second verse where it states:
I want to kiss you
Every minute, every hour, every day.
You got me in a spin
But everything is A.O.K.
here, the song retains to a certain degree that same powerlessness discussed in the first verse but gives it a kind of positive spin, if you will. Like "Sure, I'm powerless to you sexually but I still enjoy it and want to continue along with it."
Well that's it for tonight guys, gals, and non-binary pals. My caffeine supplies are running dangerously low and I haven't slept in days. Until next time. See ya!
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