Liberating the Human Heart
I have loved women to the point of madness. But I
have always preferred my liberty.GIACOMO CASANOVA*
God, how I loved my freedom before I began to
love you more than I loved it. How it weighs on me
today!GUY DE MAUPASSANT, Fort comme la mort
In 1860, when as an opponent of Napoleon III he was living in exile on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, Victor Hugo associated freedom of thought with freedom in love in a new way: “One corresponds to the heart, the other to the mind: they are the two sides of freedom of conscience. No one has the right to ask which God I believe in or which woman I love, and the law less than anyone.”1 Further on in the same text, he protested against bourgeois marriage: “You love a man other than your husband? Well then, go to him. If you do not love a man, you are his whore; if you love a man, you are his wife. In sexual union, the
* Translator’s note: Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
-9-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: The Paradox of Love.
Contributors: Pascal Bruckner - Author, Steven Rendall - Translator.
Publisher: Princeton University Press.
Place of publication: Princeton, NJ.
Publication year: 2012.
Page number: 9.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
One moment ...
- Georgia
- Arial
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
- Courier/monospaced
Reset