Found on amolife.com. Skipping the ones I have limited knowledge of.
1. Romeo and Juliet
Yes. It’s a very famous love story. But I am sorry, it is not romantic. “To take your own life for your husband or wife is definitely a sign of true love.” Except for the part where Romeo and Juliet were teenagers. Teenagers who met on a Sunday and killed themselves on a Thursday. That’s five days. That isn’t romantic, it’s impetuous and unhealthy. They barely knew each other. Sure, maybe they were attracted to each other. Maybe someday they could grow into loving each other. But I have a hard time swallowing “love at first sight.” Attraction, yes. Love… less so.
2. Cleopatra and Mark Antony
Yeeeah. I don’t know about this one either.
3. Lancelot and Guinevere
So it began in adultery, had a good helping of murder and scandal in the middle, and then ended with him as a hermit and her as a nun. I don’t know if it’s romantic so much as unfortunate. Maybe they really loved each other, I don’t know. But.
5. Paris and Helen
Does it have to involve death in order to make it on this list?
6. Orpheus and Eurydice
This is actually sort of a sweet story right up until the end, where it turns into a tragedy of impetuousness.
7. Napoleon and Josephine
I didn’t even know this counted as grandly romantic.
8. Odysseus and Penelope
Okay. So they waited for each other for twenty years and held out and didn’t actually entertain any of the offers they had from others. That’s… acceptable. I mean, they’re still neither of them my favorites, and Odysseus is a hothead, but it’s not outrageously heinous?
10. Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler
No. They are the original soap opera drama couple. There is a great heaping of unresolved sexual tension for much of the story and I’m pretty sure these two popularized (however subtly) the notion of hatesex. But I can’t actually find them to be the end-all be-all of romance.
11. Jane Eyre and Rochester
I… eh. I’m ambivalent about this one. They love each other for what’s on the inside, so that’s good, but there’s also the lying and general badness that makes it hard for me to stomach. (I honestly found it easier to get on board with in the monster mashup Jane Slayre, is that awful?)
15. Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy
More of that unresolved sexual tension. I can try to understand where people are coming from, it’s just that Darcy is such a jackass so much of the time that I can’t really get on board entirely.
16. Pocahontas and John Smith
Really?
19. Marie and Pierre Curie
Oh! I allow this. Completely. There seems to be nothing impetuous about their love. It’s all intellectual and stuff, too.
–your fangirl heroine.
