Let the Circle Be Unbroken: friendship and eros in stories

Every so often I get the urge to worry away at a conundrum that has preoccupied me over the years: the qualitative difference(s) between romantic love and friendship, as types of human love. I suppose the preoccupation dates to the first time I read C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves, which I found illuminating but ultimately very unsatisfying. This recent Sojourners article brought the subject to mind again, along with perennial fandom wrangling about bromance vs. slash, and of course my novel project, Ryswyck, rendering in the background.

I don't think I'm any closer to mastering the subject than I was when I started, but this time I decided to focus on one particular aspect of it, which is the writer's point of view -- the kinds of stories we tell about friendship and romantic love, and what kinds of stories that each love drives. It's timely because I'm seeing other writers in various venues writing about ways to "rehabilitate" friendship as a valid love in its own right, and it's important to me because -- well, we shall see.

( by and by, Lord, by and by )

Call for wine; let there be an enchantment.