Eros as a Life-Affirming Force in Dorothy Livesay’s Selected Love Poems
Khalid Qais Abd , Anan J. Lewis AlKass Yousif
In Livesay’s love poetry, the notion of love can be distinguished, referring to social relationships, as Eros is represented as a force of rupture and emancipation of the self, as well as the genuine existence of an individual. The study of love in Livesay’s poems can be deemed a deep philosophical study of both interpersonal relations and key existential issues. Livesay’s philosophy of love as a facet of Eros is explained to be multilayered in substantially implicating love in change and unity. The originality of her philosophy of love is based on the existential and phenomenological paradigms. This paper aims to explore the concept of love in selected poems by Livesay in light of Nietzsche’s will to power and Martin Heidegger's concept of being-in-the-world.
The methodology in this research tackles the concern that Livesay's philosophy of love goes far beyond any of the common attachments associated with sexuality and recklessness. It transcends into the existential and cultural realms. Such an orientation indicates that for Livesay, love is much more like an existential force bringing together in a spatial domain the poet, her vocation, and the other people involved. The philosophical turn is made on these concepts from Nietzche's idea of will to power and Heidegger's idea of being-in-the-world (Dasein). They represent tools which are wielded to elicit how Livesay denotes one's loving as a dialectic mediation between a person's actualized self and the relations that are taken in conjunction with the time-space contexts within which they are borne. The study reveals the existential and relational elements behind Livesay's philosophy of love through examining her poetry against these two philosophical concepts.
Love in Livesay's poetry can ne explicated in light of Nietzschean will to power, asserting itself as an active and creative force. Heidegger's being-in-the-world also comes into play in her reading of love as an ontological basis for human existence and its relational modes within a temporal and spatial context. Through her poetry, Livesay probes into the self-revelation and confrontations that one has to face with his or her own reality. She depicts love as a unifying yet fragile force, intrinsic to human life, capable of binding individuals while exposing their vulnerabilities.
Keywords: Dorothy Livesay, Nietzsche, Heidegger, modern Canadian Poetry, philosophy of love
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