It is a study not of the loves of real people, but of the ideal of love as it found expression in stories, stories which were often retold and reimagined by new generations and new cultures. There was a time when every hero was provided with a boyfriend as a matter of course, as all these. Straightforward examines how we got from there to here. THE TELLER OFTEN TELLS THE TALE HE WANTS TO HEAR 'Why, given its sad ending, did my not-quite-ancestor choose this particular story I wonder whether he had noticed the same tendency as I have: how young men specifically pairs of young men from Greek myth go missing in modern accounts. The reason for this is also not hard to find: as it does now, 'love' in the ancient world meant the affection of equals, and given the inferior position of women in Greek and Roman society, between the sexes is not usually where love is to be found. Very few will come up with a classical example, and the reason for this is simple: when you say archetypal, it is assumed you mean love between a man and a woman, and instances of this in classical accounts are rare. When asked to name an archetypal love story, most people will reply 'Romeo & Juliet', although some say 'Tristan & Isolde' instead.
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