Speaker 2
Resiprocity, I think. Well, you mentioned Williams. This whole theory of the figure of Beatrice is that often romantic love could be the trigger that leads you to a love of God, something that takes you out of yourself and thinks to the other person. I would have looked here, Lewis, and Williams dialogue about that because there's a great danger, obviously, in turning romantic love into a God. But in William's mind, that could be the first time you really come out of yourself, and that could be open up your soul
Speaker 1
to understanding what you need to do as a child of God. And you get some of that, I think, in the Arthurian torso, where Lewis is doing this literary criticism of Williams, Williams' Arthurian poetry. But I do think that this first love feature, something happens in us, often at adolescence. We have this experience and something wakens that it becomes relationally oriented. This person becomes so important to us, and it could easily be perverted. But I think if we look at Dante, for example, who was Lewis's favorite narrative poet, George Herbert being his favorite lyric poet, but Dante's working that through, and the Vida Nuova is first book. He talks about this first love. So what does she mean? Virgil guides him through the Inferno and the Purgatorio, and then halfway through the Purgatorio, Beatrice, who's died, picks him up and guides him to the threshold of the vision of God. And Dante says she turned to look, but not at me, she turned the eternal fountain. First love was to awaken in us the desire for our ultimate first love. So when Joy dies, and Lewis is writing a grief observed, where are the last lines in that book, they're an Italian. She turned to look, but not at me, she turned the eternal fountain. So I think Lewis has this sense undergirding this proper use of Eros, but it, like any of the loves, can be perverted. I think that's the one that most obviously can be perverted. It becomes a God in and of itself.