What happened to the Epic Yearn? Not 50 years ago, every writer worth his syntax seemed to be running his poor lovelorn feet off, struggling to win back a Great Lost Love.
Early 20th literature is absolutely lousy with ‘em: a girl, glimpsed once in a nimbus of golden light, then cherished for decades, her memory growing tattered and stained with the sepia of nostalgia.
What are the great lost loves in my generation? A few pitchers of happy-hour beer, some well-intentioned groping, maybe a submission to Texts From Last Night.
Maybe I just don’t run with the lovesick crew, but for the dudes I hang out with, the idea of an immortal romance lasts only as long as the Google cache of the blog they vented about it in.
Is it our Twitter attention spans? Does the miracle of modern technology (and all of the yummy pictures of Seth Rogan it exposes us to) burn us out on love? Maybe if someone had made Twitter accounts for the roster of the All-Boy Clubhouse Of Infinite Longing back in the day, literature would have been cured of the Epic Yearn.
JayGatz: Dude one second it’s all “you always look so cool” and now Daisy’s poking Tom on facebook. Whatevs. @jordanbaker, wanna “hit the links”?
OdysseyAtSea: I just became the mayor of Calypso’s Crib on @foursquare. (You know where to find me if you want me, @Penelope.)
Rhett Butler finally gets sick of poking Scarlett on Facebook and wanders over to a link to Suicide Girls, who are just as emotionally unavailable and – bonus! – require significantly less blockade-run fabric to sew their own outfits.
Maybe we’re just burned out by over-exposure. When Mark Twain was 22 years old, he met a girl for just three days, and spent every night of the next 57 friggin’ years dreaming about her, writing about her, collapsing like a dead star around her memory until the last of his tormented days.
Meanwhile, when I email a guy on Craigslist, before we’ve even met, he’s read five years’ worth of my personal thoughts, gone through my 200 pictures on Facebook, and knows the names and occupations of my last three boyfriends. Mark Twain single-handedly de-forested half of northern California to write a girl love letters for a lifetime; Craigslist guy only texts me when he’s drunk.
Probably the scarcity of Epic Yearns in my generation is a good thing. Like jean shorts and cocaine-infused soda pop, it was a fad with disaster scrawled all over it. Still, as a semi-professional unrequited lover, I mourn the loss of the Epic Yearn. Maybe it’s un-hip to be so earnest, but I like the idea of living in a world in which love is brutal and enduring. Or at least takes more than 140 characters to summarize.
How about you, kittens? Is Epic Yearning best left to moldy old novels, or do you too burn for something bitter and ecstatic?
* Ed’s Note: For those not up on texting lingo, less-than-three refers to the ‘less than’ sign on the keyboard and the numeral 3. So the result is <3 (get it…looks like a sideways heart!)
Photo Credit
“And then you broke my heart” Dare Darlington @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
From The Blog Series Listen: Never Gonna Happen, Dare Darlington’s Blog: I Surrender, Texture Thanks: Norma Frances
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yes,
but NOT bitter and sarcastic ,
just missed opportunities for something that never coalesced and now can never be.
I think it’s kind of insane that you expected to find an epic yearn on CRAIGSLIST. seriously.
also, you didnt mention any modern literature. You compared Fitzgerald to twitter, not fitzgerald to any good modern authors.
I’ve read plenty of good, quality, modern romances and no I’m not talking about “Twilight” which I’m actually kind of shocked you didn’t mention. Overall, weak case and argument.
Nobody compared Twitter to any kind of literature. The way I read this, the author was saying that the overexposure of social media makes modern love seem less epic. What in the world does that have to do with Twilight?
I want some dude to Epic Yearn over me. Le sigh.
Amen, I completely agree with you. As wonderful as technology is, it’s a little hard not to despise the resultant transformation of romance, which seems sometimes like such a lurid version in comparison to ages past. Pure, aching, yearning love may be horrible at times, but it’s never garish (unlike many Facebook posts/comments I’ve seen). *Sigh* Well, at least I know I’m not alone!
By the by, the “Gatsby text” was fantastic. 🙂
It’s true. No one yearns for anyone anymore, unless it’s yearning for something in their pants.
Although, for the record, I love jean shorts. Just not on dudes.
You’re right! Jean shorts look pretty okay on ladies! But man oh man, jorts on gentlemen — not a yearn-worthy sight…
That’s the first use of the phrase ‘yummy Seth Rogen pictures’ I’ve ever read! And I, for one, love the Epic Yearn. And I think it’s still goin’ strong, despite FB, Twitter, blogs, etc. I’ll yearn until I’m dead, dammit.
Yes! You can join the All-Boy Clubhouse Of Infinite Longing! It meets in my basement! Everyone’s favorite part of the meeting is when we stand up and tell our stories. In fact, meetings rarely get beyond that stage…
Oh, and doughnuts. Everyone likes the doughnuts, too.
You’re so right! Damn kids!!!
(haa haa. kinda.)
🙂
This piece really resonated with me! Sometimes I wonder if you need that extra x chromosome or at least an arts degree to appreciate the epic yearn. When I try to gaze lovingly into my boyfriend’s eyes, he invariably asks what I’m staring at…
I also got a kick out of your literary tweets–thanks for the laugh! Have you seen this contest about tweeting Shakespeare’s plays: http://www.feathertale.com/Contests/ (second one down)? It made me think of you. It closes tomorrow though…
Wow! What a fantastic topic! I am lucky to have my dating years behind me (I was a 90s dating girl). I remember then email was still kinda new on the scene. I can’t think of how many horror stories I’ve heard of people breaking up with others via text message, or broadcasting secrets via FaceBook blips. Dating in the now would be a very scary thing. Where is the mystery?! You’re so right. It’s a sad state of things.