Love and War
"This love smites me so gently/ At heart and with such sweet savor!/ Of grief do I die one hundred times a day,/ And of joy revive, again a hundred." - Bernart de Ventadorn
The galaxy is already in turmoil when Attack of the Clones begins. Hundreds of star systems have seceded from the Republic, and the Separatist movement they have formed is threatening nothing less than full-scale war. Meanwhile, a clone army is being created without anyone's knowledge, bounty hunters are staging assassinations, and even the Jedi have found their ability to use the Force diminished. Set against the backdrop of what is clearly one of the pivotal epochs in the galaxy, two young people are torn between passion and duty, and their love will have massive ramifications for the Republic.
To be sure, this is not an easy romance to establish in this age of irony, and predictably, it has been one of the more criticized elements in the film. The relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala is simply not compatible with most of the love stories that have dominated popular entertainment. It is best when viewed not against Sex in the City or even Titanic, but rather other tales that have a certain of mythic weight to them. When the first trailers debuted, I wrote an editorial for TheForce.net concerning the parallels between the Anakin and Padme romance and the tradition of courtly love that came about in the Middle Ages. After seeing the film, this correlation is even stronger, for it gives fine expression to that particular manifestation of love in which it is tantamount to divine siezure.
There were many kinds of courtly love that sprung up all over Europe, from the "minnesingers" wandering the German countryside telling tales of love, to the troubadours traveling from court to court in the south of France reciting lyrics about unrequited hearts. However, this was no mere sentimentality confined to emotional fantasy. As Joseph Campbell writes in "Creative Mythology," it was a new way of feeling, a veritable religion of love. Neither driven by indiscriminate desire nor the dictates of church and state, it was "a flame of love in which lust and religion are equally consumed."
For the troubadours, this earth in all its pain was still their heaven. These are the days in which Dante had but one fleeting glance at Beatrice and yet fell in love with her instantly, and remained that way until his death. This is when the poet Gottfried van Strassburg was providing "bread for noble hearts" through the tragic tale of Tristan and Isolde. This is when the youthful affair of Heloise and Abelard ended in tragedy, yet after it was all over, her passion still had not dimmed as these words reflect - "God knows, but at your command, I would have followed or preceded you to fiery places. For my heart is not with me but with thee."
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