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Types Of Love In Cyrano De Bergerac

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Types of Love in Cyrano de Bergerac Love is a force that inspires us to feel more, do more, and sometimes sacrifice for the object of our attention. Poems, music, relationships are all written in the name of love. There are six kinds of love, according to the ancient Greeks: 1. Eros, or sexual love. 2. Philia, or deep friendship. 3. Ludus, flirtatious love. 4. Agape, love for everyone. 5. Pragma, longstanding love, 6. Philautia, self love. To some, love may be a foolish game, to others it may be purely romantic or physical. Merriam-Webster dictionary describes it as this: love: a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties. Yet there’s more to it than that. Love or loving is a very fluid notion. One can love a partner differently than they love their friends, or family; you can even have a love of inanimate objects, or even works of art. If I, as a teenager, were to describe love, it would be having a sense of security in someone. When we love someone it usually means we can depend on them and they will be there for us in times of growth, happiness, sadness and loss. In my mind, love also means wanting what is best for someone and encouraging them to be their best self. In Cyrano de Bergerac, the complexity of love is displayed through Roxane, Christian, and Cyrano’s characters. Cyrano loves Roxane more than anyone else in the world, but he’s too shy to tell her, due to feeling so ugly because of his very large, very long nose. At first, Cyrano has Eros for Roxane, or sexual attraction. When he discovers that Roxane fancies his friend Christian, he does not steer her away from him; instead, he supports her. This itself is an act of Pragma. Pragma is the type of love that revolves around adoration and sometimes selflessness. The Greeks described pragma as making compromises and displaying tolerance. Cyrano chose Roxane’s happiness over his own, because he was certain that he could never truly fulfill Roxane’s needs. Often love partnerships are built on the common ground of similar interests, or philosophical or religious beliefs. Yet in Cyrano’s case, it was much more than a matching of interests; he was compelled by the depth of his feelings. Cyrano

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