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AN INQUIRY INTO PSYCHODYNAMIC CORRELATES

OF HIGH ROMANTICISM IN MALES

By

Richard Levine

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Psychology

1977

ABSTRACT
AN INQUIRY INTO PSYCHODYNAMIC CORRELATES
or HIGH ROMANTICISM IN MALES
By

Richard Levine

This dissertation is an effort to pull together
Freud's scattered writings on romanticism and romantic
love into a clear theoretical exposition of his views
concerning this subject. It is also designed to subject
to empirical testing some of the major tenets of Freud's
theory of romanticism and romantic love. The orthodox
psychoanalytic approach to romantic love focuses almost
exclusively on males as smitten lovers, and casts women
as adored and pursued love objects. In its attempts to
shed light on this important dimension of human experi-
ence, psychoanalytic theory stresses the central role
played by the Oedipus complex, more precisely unresolved
conflicts catalyzed by it.

Specifically, the present study hypothesized that
romanticism in males would correlate positively with
Oedipal intensity, castration anxiety, self-rating as
externally controlled, and death anxiety (conceptualized

by Freud as a derivation of castration anxiety). As part

Richard Levine

of the undertaking to test these hypotheses, a romantic
love scale (the LRS) was constructed and validated with
a View towards operationalizing the characteristics of
romanticism delineated by Freud.

A sample of 62 unmarried male university under-
graduates was drawn from Michigan State University's stu-
dent body. Dean's (1961) Romanticism Scale (built upon
an eclectic View of romantic love) and the LRS previously
alluded to were used to operationalize romanticism.

Cards IV and VI of the Blacky Test (Blum, 1949) were used
to operationalize Oedipal intensity and castration anxiety,
respectively. Rotter's (1966) Internal-External Locus of
Control Scale was used to operationalize self-rating as
externally controlled. Templer's (1970) Death Anxiety
Scale was used to operationalize death anxiety. Point-
biserial correlation tests were employed to test Hypoth-
eses 1 and 2. Product-moment correlations were computed
to test Hypotheses 3 and 4.

The results generally did not uphold the Freudian
View of romanticism in males. Of the four major hypoth-
eses, only Hypothesis 3, that romanticism in males corre-
lates positively with self-rating as externally controlled,
was supported by the data. There were some tentative
additional findings which suggested that pre-Oedipal
conflicts and concerns may play a more prominent role in

romanticism and romantic love than Freud envisaged.

Richard Levine

In retrospect and in discussing the results, sev-
eral conceptual and practical problems in this study's
design were considered. Some suggestions were offered
regarding potentially fruitful directions for further
research in the area of romanticism and romantic love.
The need for developing new instruments andapproachesto
the problem of measuring romanticism was touched upon.
In a related matter, it was suggested that the LRS be
subjected to factor analysis as a means of determining
more precisely just what it measures, and as a vehicle
for clarifying further the extent to which Freud's con-
cept of romanticism differs from more eclectic notions
of the same phenomenon. Finally, the advisability of
extending the range of sample characteristics and enter-
taining a modified theoretical orientation in future

research pertaining to romanticism was specified.

This dissertation is dedicated to my grand-
mother, Leah Mandel, whose love and sparkle have

brightened my life and strengthened my resolve.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I consider myself most fortunate to have crossed
paths with Dr. Albert Rabin. His warmth, zest for liv-
ing, integrity, acute intelligence, and breadth of
knowledge have added immeasurably to my life. I will
value his friendship always.

For their help in improving the design and con-
ceptualization of this dissertation I would like to
thank the other members of my committee, Drs. Norman
Abeles, Griff Freed, and Bert Karon.

My friend and colleague, David Hayes, offered
invaluable assistance in obtaining and interpreting the
computer—developed data.

Finally, I want to thank my lovely wife, Janice,
for her love and patience. Her support was indispens-

able to the completion of this thesis.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES
INTRODUCTION

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Defining Romantic Love . . . . .
Freud's Perspective . . . . . .
A Medieval Point of View . . . . . . . .
A Contemporary American Rendition . . . . .

Freudian Theory and Romantic Love
The Oedipus Complex. A Resume . . .
The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex
Romantic Love and the Oedipus Complex
Freudian Theory and Romantic Love Unmasked
The Aura of Predestination . .
Adultery, Jealousy, Rivalry
Overvaluation of the Loved One
The Rescue Motif .
Intensity and Approach- -Avoidance Conflict
Obstacles, Suffering, Absence of Consummation
Dependency, Self-Abnegation, Masochism
Romantic Love and Death
Introductory Perspectives
The Psychoanalytic Nexus . . .
The Immortalist Alternative . . . .

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
HYPOTHESES
METHOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Description of Instruments
The Dean Romanticism Scale
The Levine Romanticism Scale
The Blacky Test
The Rotter Internal- External Locus of
Control Scale
The Death Anxiety Scale
Subjects . . . . .

iv

Page

68
7O

7O
7O
71
73

74
75
77

Page

Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Predictions in Terms of Instruments Employed . . 78
STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA . . . . . . . . . . . 80
RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Additional Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
The Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Directions for Further Research . . . . . . . . . 104
SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
A. THE DEAN ROMANTICISM SCALE . . . . . . . . . 112
B. THE LEVINE ROMANTICISM SCALE . . . . . . . . 116
C. CARTOONS USED IN THE BLACKY PICTURES
TECHNIQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
D. SOCIAL REACTION INVENTORY (I-E SCALE) . . . . 120
E. THE DEATH ANXIETY SCALE . . . . . . . . . . . 125
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1. Sample Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

2. Coefficients of Correlation for DRS Scores
Versus Oedipal Intensity . . . . . . . . . 83

3. Coefficients of Correlation for LRS Scores
Versus Oedipal Intensity . . . . . . . . . 84

4. Coefficients of Correlation for DRS Scores
Versus Castration Anxiety . . . . . . . . . 86

5. Coefficients of Correlation for LRS Scores
Versus Castration Anxiety . . . . . . . . . 87

6. Coefficients of Correlation for Romanticism
Scales Versus Self-Rating as Externally
Controlled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

7. Coefficients of Correlation for Romanticism
Scales Versus Death Anxiety . . . . . . . . 89

8. Coefficients of Correlation for Death
Anxiety Scores Versus Castration Anxiety . 91

9. Coefficients of Correlation for Romanticism

Measures Versus Oral Eroticism
Disturbance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Vi

INTRODUCTION

If a person from medieval times could be tele-
ported to contemporary America, he might experience his
surroundings with a sense of wonderment equal to that of
a visitor from another planet. Nonetheless, certain
facets of human experience would transcend the barriers
of time and culture that separate medieval man from his
modern counterpart. For example, romanticism and roman-
tic 1ove are profound aspects of human experience which
seem to have undergone remarkably little change through-
out the vicissitudes of historical development.

The romance of Tristan and Iseult, steeped in

 

passion and suffering, is echoed thematically in current
novels and films. Invoking Jungian terminology, Rougemont
(1974), an acerbic critic of romantic love, characterized
the Tristan legend as "a kind of archetype of our most
complex feelings of unrest" (p. 18). The durability of
romantic love is matched only by its elusiveness.

This elusiveness probably accounts for the failure
of the empirical sciences in general and psychology in
particular to explore the mysteries of romanticism and
romantic love (Curtin, 1973; Spanier, 1972). Moreover,
the surmounting of definitional ambiguities constitutes

l

only a tentative step in the quest to understand the
unconscious and conscious elements which are called into
play in romantic love. In short, social scientists, with
few notable exceptions, have designated one of the most
powerful currents in human experience as too intangible
and ineffable to be suitable for scientific investigation.

In contrast to most of his successors, Freud
attempted during the course of his brilliant career to
lunmask the seemingly impenetrable mysteries of romantic
love. When the threads of his work on this arcane sub-
ject are pulled together, a coherent definition of roman-
tic love emerges. This definition is then incorporated
into a comprehensive theoretical matrix which purports to
explain in psychodynamic terms the phenomenon of romantic
love. Not surprisingly, Freud's theory of love focuses
on man as the active pursuer and woman as the object of
man's affections.

In general, psychoanalytic theory has not readily
lent itself to experimental testing and validation. Psy—
chodynamic processes which are observed and experienced
within the context of psychoanalysis seem to lose their
sharpness and clarity when they are examined in labora—
tory conditions (Leichty, 1958). Although individual
components which enter into Freud's theoretical approach
to romanticism and romantic love have been subjected to

empirical scrutiny, there has not been a single study

directly concerned with testing the validity of the
psychoanalytic explanation of these phenomena.

The present study is an initial effort to fill
this void. It will unfold in the following manner.
First, Freud's description of romantic love will be spelled
out as fully as possible. The applicability of that des-
cription both to the past and the present will be consid-
ered. Secondly, Freud's theoretical View of the psycho-
dynamics of romanticism and romantic love will be
delineated. Thirdly, certain components of psychoanalytic
theory will be synthesized in order to provide a basis
for understanding the intimate relationship that exists
between romantic love and death. Poets and scientists
alike have been intrigued by the fact that love and death
are such close companions. Finally, alternative explana-
tions which reach beyond the pale of orthodox psycho-
analytic thought will be presented in a further effort to
decipher why love and death are so often inseparable.

The four areas of discussion just outlined will
be focal points in the literature review of the present
study. Once this theoretical scaffolding has been set
in place, hypotheses will be promulgated and tested which
are consonant with psychoanalytic perspectives on roman-
ticism and romantic love. For reasons that will become

manifest as the theoretical discussion unfolds, the

empirical investigation of the psychoanalytic view of
romanticism and romantic love will be confined exclu-
sively to males.

Social science has long neglected romanticism and
romantic love. Direct empirical testing of the richest,
most inclusive theory of these phenomena has been non—
existent. There is a challenge implicit in these two
facts. The present inquiry is inspired in large measure

by that implicit challenge.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Defining Romantic Love

 

The diversity and nuances of love have led many
people to conclude that it defies coherent definition.
Responding to its complexities, Freud developed a mean—
ingful overview of the primary attributes of romantic
love. His conceptualization parallels to a striking
degree medieval and modern manifestations of romance.

In the pages which follow, Freud's description of roman-
tic love will be developed in considerable detail. This
description will subsequently be related to medieval and

contemporary times.

Freud's Perspective

Although Freud (1925a) acknowledged that the mean-
ing of love, in all its permutations, is exceptionally
ambiguous, it is possible to cull from his writings a
distinct and convincing rendering of the characteristics
of romantic love. Focusing almost exclusively on the
phenomenon of romanticism in males, Freud (1910) differ-
entiated what he termed a special type of object choice
made by men from the many varieties and intensities of
human love. This special object choice closely resembles

romantic love as it has been depicted in literature over

5

the centuries. Freud had a vision of romantic love as
well as a theory to explain its pervasiveness in the human
arena. It is opportune now to turn to that vision.

One of the first observations about romantic love
made from a nascent psychoanalytic point of View was
recorded in the 1890's (Breuer & Freud, 1893-1895). Men-
tion is made of the propensity of moonstruck lovers to
engage in an inordinate amount of fantasy about their
typically absent or otherwise inaccessible love objects.
This fantasizing is accompanied by intense affect and
resultant enervation. It is so engrossing that other
aspects of the swooning lover's existence fade into
insignificance (Freud & Breuer, 1893-1895).

Years later, Freud (1915a) returned to the role
of fantasy in romantic love and noted that such musing
frequently took the place of action. There is also the
suggestion in Freud's early speculations about romantic
love that the commonplace inaccessibility or absence of
the love object is attributable more to unconscious
forces at work within the aspiring lover than to external
circumstances wholly beyond his control (Freud, 1915a).
The substitution of fantasy for action and the unavail-
ability of the love object appear to go hand-in—hand.

In describing romantic love, Freud (1912) drew
attention to the extraordinary obstacles to consummation

which typically mark its course. While men have always

seemed to seek or create resistance in order to heighten
passion, in romantic love these barriers are often insur-
mountable. Moreover, romance seems to die in the absence
of formidable internal or external obstructions in its
path. Thus the romantic lover characteristically directs
his affections toward a woman who is already attached to
another man through betrothal or marriage (Freud, 1910).
Rivalry is one of the foremost preconditions for romantic
love.

Perhaps the most powerful internally generated
barrier to fulfillment in romantic love is the lover's
predisposition to overvalue and idealize the object of
his desires to such a degree that she is placed on a
pedestal beyond the reach of his ostensible longings
(Freud, 1910). Confronted by his beloved's perfection,
the swain often deems himself to be unworthy of her love.
An early and devoted adherent of Freud (Hitschmann, 1952)
has singled out the irrational idealization of the love
object as the most prominent feature of romantic love.

Even as the lover overvalues and idealizes his
belOved, he is consumed by doubts about her fidelity and
reliability (Freud, 1910). This creates two powerful
sentiments in the suspicious suitor: jealousy and the
urge to rescue his beloved from her real or imagined
transgressions. The man who is caught up in the trans-

ports of romantic love exhibits inconsistency and

impairment of reality-testing powers (Hitschmann, 1952).
Fantasy dominates the lover's experience of the world.
Passionate feelings preoccupy him to the extent that
virtually nothing else matters. A love relationship at
its height leaves no room for interest in other parts
of the environment (Freud, 1930).

In addition to being overwhelmingly intense,
there is a compulsive quality to romantic love. The smit-
ten lover commonly believes his destiny lies in the stars
or some other mysterious external force. Romantic love
is often "love at first sight." Although it would be
premature at this point to present in detail Freud's
explanation of romantic love's volatile, irrational, and
compelling aspects, it is in order to point out he
regarded unconscious determinants as keys with which to
unlock many of love's enigmas.

The proclivity in romantic entanglements to
idealize the love object proceeds, in extreme instances,
to devour the lover's ego (Freud, 1921). Dependence on
an exalted and remote loved one lowers self-regard
(Freud, 1914). The romantic lover feels humble and
unworthy of his beloved's attentions. He worships her
from afar; demands little or nothing in return for his
adoration; suppresses his sexual needs; and revels in

compliments extended by others to his loved one (Freud,

1920b). The lover even suffers inobtrusively so as not to
disturb the woman whom he adores.

Self-abnegation, unrequitedness, pathos, and
bondage all enter centrally into Freud's description of
the romantic variant of human love. Romantic love has
been compared to hypnosis in that both engender an
extreme admixture of exclusive attachment and credulous
obedience in the hypnotic subject and the lover (Freud,
1905). Given the masochistic currents which run through
romantic love, it comes as no surprise that Freud termed
it potentially pathogenic in a lecture he delivered in
1914 (Hitschmann, 1952). Sounding a note of understated
cynicism, Freud added that a scientific interpretation of
romantic love might cost poets their readers (Hitschmann,

1952).

A Medieval Point of View

 

Theoretical presuppositions have been known to
color an observer's perception and description of phenom-
ena he is endeavoring to explain. Since Freud did elab-
orate a refined and intricate analysis of romantic love,
it is legitimate to question whether his theory dis-
torted his capacity to discern its essential character-
istics. One means of assessing Freud's "objectivity" in
this regard is to compare his description of romantic

love with earlier and later meanings of the term. If

10

Freud was correct in his belief that the wellsprings of
romance reside in unconscious conflicts which are univer—
sal in nature, then one would expect a substantial measure
of consistency regarding the manner in which man has
expressed his romantic impulses throughout history.

In the latter part of the twelfth century,

Andreas Capellanus wrote The Treatise on Love, which

 

contains a vivid rendering of the features of medieval
courtly love (Askew, 1965). Both psychoanalytic and non-
psychoanalytic observers have treated courtly love and
romantic love as essentially interchangeable terms
(Beigel, 1951; Koenigsberg, 1967). Courtly love rested
upon the principle of scarcity in that noblemen and
knights far outnumbered the ladies of the court who were
the objects of their affections. Women of the lower
social orders, such as the peasantry, were ravished and
discarded rather than loved (Askew, 1965). The compara-
tively small number of noble ladies in part explains the
intensity and competitiveness intrinsic to courtly love.
More specifically, love which conformed to the tenets of
the courtly code was adulterous and secretive (Askew,
1965).

Although shot through with intrigue and passion,
courtly love typically relegated carnal desire to subli-
mated and spiritualized outlets of expression. The lover

who attained the highest level of development, as measured

11

by the code of courtly love, was granted the right to
accompany his lady to her bedroom, to remove all of her
clothes, and to put her to bed. Occasionally he was even
permitted to sleep with her provided he contented himself
with only a brief kiss (Beigel, 1951).

The suppression of sexual desire in courtly love
was not, however, simply a matter of honor. The lover's
passivity, which often bordered on total paralysis, seems
to have been inspired by fear as much as by a sense of
honor. It is particularly intriguing that the presence
of the beloved sufficed to change the courtly lover's
longings into abject fear (Askew, 1965). As a rule, the
courtly lover languished alone far from the woman he
ostensibly desired.

Courtly love was thus suffused with conflict and
suffering. The worshipped lady generally treated her
passionate admirer with indifference or contempt (Koenigs-
berg, 1967). The maligned lover responded to inacces—
sibility, lack of consummation, and open rejection with
increased longing, extreme deference, and self-effacement.
Indeed masochistic submission to the lady was one of
the central features of courtly love (Koenigsberg, 1967).
The lover's capacity and willingness to suffer was a
demonstration and measure of his love (Evans, 1953).

The elusive lady was sought after not only

because of her qualities of beauty and nobility, but also

12

because she could confer and verify her pursuer's virtue
by acceptance of him (Koenigsberg, 1967). Acts of valor,
self-sacrifice, and self-punishment were undertaken by
the lover to win his lady's approval. Since the code of
courtly love dictated that the lady always be engaged or
married (Beigel, 1951), acceptance of her lover's
advances and affirmation of his worthiness necessarily
involved some measure of betrayal vis-a-vis the man to
whom she was already attached. This meant that a woman
of questionable fidelity was elevated to the status of

a revered judge by her lovestruck admirer.

Even this abbreviated delineation of courtly
love bears a distinct resemblance to Freud's description
of romantic love. Some of the most clear-cut parallels
include: (1) the man falls in love withziwoman who is
attached and inaccessible; (2) ever-present jealousy not
only inflames passion but also seems to be actively
sought; (3) the lover irrationally overvalues the love
object even though she may be of dubious character;

(4) the lover is totally absorbed in his quest to the
exclusion of all other concerns; (5) curiously, his
passion usually spawns passivity, paralysis, and sick-
ness instead of galvanizing action; (6) the beloved is
an object of fear, especially as she becomes more
approachable; (7) sexual desire is stifled rather than

acted out; (8) the lover's self-concept rests to an

13

inordinate degree upon the attitude his beloved adOpts
toward him; (9) through demonstrations of courage and
other impressive deeds both the courtly lover and the
romantic lover express an impulse to rescue their loved
ones in some manner. All of these parallels buttress
Koenigsberg's (1967) View that courtly love, which he
traces back to Plato, Ovid, and Ibn Hazm, is a form of
romantic love whose historical persistence suggests it
originates in an unconscious conflict universal to all
men. According to Koenigsberg (1967), romantic love
must be understood as a clearly defined, meaningful

psychodynamic constellation.

A Contemporary American Rendition

With respect to definition, romantic love in
contemporary America is, for the most part, remarkably
similar to the main features of medieval courtly love and
Freud's (1910) description of a special choice of object
made by men. This definitional continuity indicates
Freud's theory of romantic love is still germane and con-
stitutes a worthy subject for empirical investigation.
What then is the physiognomy of romantic love in America
today?

Professional pulsetakers of the American scene,
many of them sociologists and psychologists whose orien-

tations are alien to psychoanalytic doctrine, have

14

described romantic love in the United States in terms
that are consonant with those invoked by Freud (Ellis,
1962; Greenfield, 1965; Orlinsky, 1972; Reiss, 1960;
Spaulding, 1970). The belief in self-mastery and hard-
headed realism, which figures so prominently in popular
conceptions of "the American character," evanesces in

the context of romance. Romantic love is love at first
sight (Reiss, 1960). The romantic lover feels himself

to be a plaything of irresistible and transcendant forces
beyond the locus of his control (Orlinsky, 1972). It is
as if Cupid's arrows continue to hone in on their tar-
gets in twentieth century America. The romantic lover's
sense of powerlessness mingles with extreme irrationality
and flightiness (Ellis, 1962).

This irrationality manifests itself in diverse
ways. The lover imputes remarkable qualities to his
beloved that are, at best, pale reflections of reality
(Greenfield, 1965). Idealization of the loved one is
accompanied by total disinterest in anything or anyone
else other than her (Greenfield, 1965). There is, in
this unmitigated preoccupation, implicit acceptance of
the notion that only one person is capable of satisfy-
ing the lover's erotic and affectional needs (Slater,
1971).

The self-effacement and suffering which Freud

highlighted in his portrait of romantic love endure as

15

fixtures in the present American landscape. There is no
sacrifice too great to make for romantic love. In fact,
the degree of sacrifice is a measure of love's intensity
(Ellis, 1962). When one is truly in love, he renders
himself subservient to his beloved's every wish and whim
(Ellis, 1962). The ecstasy which romantic love promises
is invariably spiked with agony (Orlinsky, 1972). When
romantic love is unreciprocated, or when one is abandoned
by his loved one, the most painful feeling imaginable is
inflicted (Ellis, 1962). Yet romantic love American
style is marked by the same strange preference for uncon-
summated, unrequited, interrupted, or otherwise tragic
relationships that pervaded courtly love, as well as
Freud's depiction of highly romantic liaisons (Slater,
1971). The romantic lover apparently fears the reali—
zation of what he ostensibly most desires. And unre-
quitedness stokes passion's fires rather than tamping
them down (Ellis, 1962).

There is lively controversy concerning the link-
age between romantic love and marriage in the United
States. Some theorists (Goode, 1959; Spanier, 1972)
assert that romantic love is the foremost catalyst for
marriage among Americans. They further contend that
conjugal love is not distinguishable from romantic love
(Goode, 1959; Spanier, 1972). Others (Dean, 1962;

Rougemont, 1974) retort vociferously that romantic love

16

is fundamentally different from conjugal love, and that
romantics find the very thought of marriage repugnant.

In medieval courtly love and Freud's (1910)
delineation of a special object choice made by men, a
cardinal precondition for romantic involvement was that
the pursued lady already be attached--usually married.
Although rivalry and adultery are frequently encountered
in pOpular media representations of romance in America,
it remains problematic whether these elements are essen-
tial to romantic love in our society at the present time.

With the qualification that there are varied
forms of romantic love and that cultural specificity must
be taken into account, it is clear there are many points
of conjuncture among medieval accounts of courtly love,
Freud's concept of romantic love, and contemporary
American renditions of romantic entanglement. Freud's
definition and theoretical approach to romantic love are

applicable to America today.

Freudian Theory and Romantic Love
In addition to defining romantic love, Freud
tried to explain it. Frederico Fellini's recent film,
Casanova, contains a scene which captures pictorially the
keystone of Freud's theory of romantic love. By way of
‘ background, Casanova is a heroic fornicator, but through-

out the long sexual odyssey which is his 1ife, a loving,

17

reciprocal relationship eludes him. When he does suc-
cumb to his strong romantic urges, Casanova invariably
falls in love with women who belong to other men and who
must leave him. Frenzied lovemaking does not extinguish
Casanova's unfulfilled desire for an enduring romantic
liaison. Near the end of the film, Fellini provides a
brilliant psychological insight into the psychodynamics
of Casanova's futile quest. Unexpectedly, Casanova
happens upon his aged mother to whom he offers profuse
apologies for having remained out of touch for many years.
He then carries his mother on his back to a waiting car-
.giagg. Fellini, undoubtedly influenced by Freud, conveys
in this scene the truth that all men are saddled to some
degree by the original attachment they formed with their
mothers. Freud believed that romantic men are among the
least successful in disengaging from their libidinal

ties to their mothers. The Oedipus complex is at the

core of Freud's theory of romantic love.

The Oedipus Complex: A Resume

Sexual life begins, in Freud's (1916-1917) view,
with the act of sucking at the mother's breast. The
child is at first incapable of differentiating between
his mother's breast and his own body (Freud, 1940). He
subsequently progresses to the point of experiencing

himself as a separate entity, but only gradually replaces

18

his first object of attachment, the breast, with recog-
nition of his mother as a person who nurtures and cares
for him (Freud, 1940). In responding to her infant's
physical and emotional needs, the mother becomes, as a
matter of course, the child's first seducer (Freud, 1940).
The bond that typically is formed between mother and
child is so paramount and unique that it exercises pro-
found influence over all the ensuing love relationships

a person experiences during his lifetime.

At the age of two or three years, a boy enters
the phallic stage of libidinal development, at which time
he begins to focus on pleasurable sensations he derives
voluntarily or involuntarily from stimulation of his
penis. Coincident with attainment of this libidinal
phase, the little boy yearns to be no less than his
mother's lover. Freud (1916-1917) quoted Diderot to
depict graphically the nature of the child's aspirations:
"'Iftfluelittle savage were left to himself, preserving
all his foolishness and adding to the small sense of a
child in the cradle the violent passions of a man of
thirty, he would strangle his father and lie with his
mother'" (p.338). In our civilization, however, "the

little savage" is quickly brought to heel.

19

The Dissolution of
the Oedipus Complex

 

 

Although Freud (1916-1917) once suggested that a
son's primary tasks during puberty are to transfer his
libidinal desires from his mother to a viable alternative
love object and to forge a new bond based on equality
with his father, he made clear his belief in later writ-
ings (Freud, 1923b; 1940) that the course of developments
in puberty is almost wholly dictated by events which
take place before latency. In other words, Freud's final
position concerning the outcome of the Oedipus complex
contains a stronger dose of historical determinism, dat-
ing back to the efflorescence of sexuality in childhood,
than do his earlier intimations that voluntarism and
consciousness can be mobilized during puberty to break
the libidinal chains which bind a son to his mother.

Given Freud’s conclusion that the fate of the
Oedipus complex is largely, if not completely, determined
prior to the onset of the latency period around age five,
what then is the "normal" course of events leading to its
resolution? It is far easier to delineate the elements
that enter into the dissolution or weakening of the son's
Oedipal attachment to his mother, than it is to describe
the plethora of individual outcomes that these elements
help to shape. Freud (1924) advanced three self-

admittedly vague alternatives to account for the

20

dissolution of the Oedipus complex. All three of these
possible explanations are temporally situated between
two or three and five years of age.

The first possible determinant of the Oedipus
complex's eventual demise is the experience of repeated
and powerful disappointments which the little boy endures
in his futile quest to translate his libidinal desires
for his mother into reality. According to this hypothe-
sis, continual rebuffs eventually lead the boy-lover to
turn away from the object of his affections (Freud,
1924). A second possibility entertained by Freud (1924)
is that the Oedipus complex is genetically programmed to
self-destruct. Thissecond alternative, standing alone,
leaves unanswered why there are so many instances of
incomplete or unsuccessful Oedipal resolution. Finally,
and most importantly, Freud came to regard castration
anxiety as the Rosetta stone in resolving the mystery
of how Oedipal ties are significantly vitiated or broken.

To elucidate, at some point during the phallic
stage of her son's libidinal development, the mother
becomes cognizant that his manifest sexual excitation
relates to herself (Freud, 1940). Ordinarily she regards
this state of affairs as wrong and forbids her son from
continuing to masturbate. To put teeth into this admoni-
tion, the mother threatens the little boy with the possi-

bility he may lose his penis, often invoking his father

21

as the executor of that punishment (Freud, 1940). This
threat does not by itself make a big impression on the
little boy until or unless he has had the opportunity of
viewing the female genitals. Once that fateful obser—
vation occurs, the little boy is convinced his penis
literally might be removed. This initiates the castra-
tion complex, the most severe trauma of his young life
(Freud, 1940).

The threat of castration has profound effects on
the boy's relationship to both of his parents, as well
as his future interactions with both men and women. The
impact of the castration complex, as intimated earlier,
is far too varied and complex to forecast from some uni-
versal theoretical model the specific manifestations it
will assume in any given individual. Nonetheless, cer—
tain broad predictions can be made.

Given the choice between his narcissistic inter-
est in preserving his penis and continued expression of
libidinal desires toward his mother, the child's ego
normally veers away from the Oedipus complex and the
latency period commences (Freud, 1924). At one point,
Freud (1925b) averred that in ideal cases the shock of
threatened castration does not simply repress, but
literally demolishes the Oedipus complex, thereby laying
the foundations for development of the superego. Years

later, Freud (1940) abandoned this categorical position

22

with the more temperate conclusion that castration
anxiety leads more or less completely to renunciation

of the boy's wish to possess his mother. Although
repression dominates the latency period, there is revivi—
fication of libidinal fixations and conflicts left over
from the period before latency concomitant with the
dramatic increase in somatic sexual processes that takes
place in puberty.

Although the contents of these residual libidinal
fixations and conflicts differ from one individual to
another, it is possible'hadifferentiatertdatively suc-
cessful cases of Oedipal complex resolution from those
instances in which mature men remain libidinally bound
to their mothers. In the course of articulating the
psychoanalytic theory of romantic love, it will be pro-
posed that highly romantic men have been comparatively
unsuccessful in freeing themselves from archaic Oedipal
attachments. Freud looked upon the Oedipus complex as
an unavoidable and crucial factor in each person's life.
His analysis of romanticism and romantic love is inti-
mately related to his View of the Oedipus complex in
all ofits permutations.

Romantic Love and the
Oedipus Complex

 

 

More than a century before Freud's work was first

conceived and published, Jean-Jacques Rousseau described

23

his first sexual experience in the following manner:

"'Was Ihappy? No. I tasted the pleasure, but I knew

what invincible sadness poisoned its charm. I felt as if
I had committedincest'"(cited in Casler, 1973, p. 6).

The heart of Freud's theoretical structure for under-
standing the origins and essence of human love is embedded
in Rousseau's remembrance.

At the risk of being redundant, it seems worth-
while to reiterate that Freud viewed the unfolding of the
Oedipus complex in males, intricate as it is, to be much
easier to follow than is the case with females. This
helps to explain why most of the psychoanalytic litera-
ture concerned with romanticism and romantic love gives
heavy emphasis to its manifestations in males. The
present study will adhere to the focus of the theory it
is endeavoring to explore.

Freud (1910) contrasted the singular character-
istics of romantic love embodied in what he coined "a
special type of object choice made by men” with the love
of "normal" individuals. Yet he contended that all love
represents a sublimation of unacceptable sexual impulses
(Freud, 1921). What then is the basis for the distinc-
tion Freud drew between romantic love and "normal" love?
Psychoanalytic theory holds that both romantic and
”normal" forms of love originate in and are expressive

of infantile fixation of tender feelings on the mother

24

(Freud, 1910). However, in the case of men who experi-
ence "normal" love, detachment of libido from the mother

has taken place in a relatively swift and complete manner.

 

By way of contrast, among those prone to romantic involve-
ments, libido remains bound to the mother for a long

time, even after the onset of puberty (Freud, 1910).
Although it is disputable (Hitschmann, 1952; Rabin, 1965),
Freud maintained the Oedipus complex is a universal

rather than a culturally specific phenomenon. He also
believed the particular, idiosyncratic form which the
Oedipus complex assumes in the case of each individual
determines, to a striking degree, the way in which that
individual loves. This perspective harmonizes with the
psychoanalytic dictum that the child is father to the

man .

Freudian Theory and Romantic Love Unmasked

With the Oedipus complex at the center of his
theoretical framework, Freud was able to integrate and
interpret the seemingly baffling characteristics of roman-
tic 1ove he had particularized. At this juncture, clus-
ters of the major features of romantic love will each be
scrutinized in turn through the prism of psychoanalytic
theory. The result of this synthesis will be to evoke a
unified, comprehensive means for unravelling the for-

midable complexities of romanticism and romantic love.

25

The Aura of Predestination

The romantic lover experiences falling in love as
a process which lies totally outside the domain of voli-
tion. Destiny, not choice, is the ruler of romance.
Romantic literature is replete with descriptions of lovers
as hapless pawns manipulated by unseen forces beyond their
control. The occurrence of "love at first sight” is a
dramatic manifestation of the aura of predestination
which envelopes romantic relationships.

In his first explicit articulation of the Oedipus
complex, Freud (1897) wrote to his friend and collabo—

rator, Fliess, that Sophocles' Oedipus Rex exercised

 

riveting power over its audiences because it is con-
structed around a theme which is universal, though uncon-
scious, in man. In the same letter, Freud (1897) com-
mented that Sophocles had, through striking a primal
chord in the unconscious, succeeded in overcoming the
rebellion of man's reason against the notion he is con—
trolled by unfathomable forces external to himself.

Freud (1900) elaborated upon this idea in The Interpre-

 

tation of Dreams, when he observed that Oedipus Rex

 

 

teaches that man must acquiesce to the will of the gods
and acknowledge he has little power to be the architect
of his own fate. In the case of Sophocles' play, it is

clear Freud regarded the powers attributed to gods as

26

emanating, in fact, from man's own, compelling uncon—
scious impulses.

All love relationships contain elements of roman-
ticism which, in the psychoanalytic view, derive from the
original libidinal attachment to the mother. In the case
of extremely romantic forms of love, Freud (1910) relied
~upon careful observations of men whom he perceived to be
sharply defined romantic types. Highly romantic men
retain powerful, unconscious libidinal desires for their
mothers, and they are fated repeatedly to act out these
repressed strivings in lieu of remembering them (Freud,
1920a). The sense of helplessness and absence of control
which pervade the experience of romantic love are thus
products of repressed childhood wishes. Until and unless
these forbidden desires are confronted at the level of
consciousness, romantic impulses will continue to strip
man of his phenomenological sense of internal control.

It is his unconscious, not the gods, which transforms a
man immersed in romance into a pawn.

From this vantage point, "love at first sight,"
which so often heralds the advent of romantic love, is
divested of much of its mystery. Its very suddenness
suggests unconscious contents have been tapped. "Love
at first sight" is made possible by repressed memories
and associated lust for the first love object in a man's

life--his mother (Hitschmann, 1952).

27

Adultery,_Jealousy, Rivalry

One of the preconditions for romantic love speci-
fied by Freud is that the sought—after love object be
intimately involved with another man, usually either
engaged or married to him. This precondition is included
in the code of courtly love as well (Koenigsberg, 1967).
The existence of a competitor for the affections of the
woman whom one loves naturally generates jealousy and
rivalry. Yet in romantic love this very situation seems
to be especially alluring despite its complications.

This allure is understandable if romantic love
is, as Freud (1910) believed, an unconscious quest to
recreate in adult experience the childhood situation in
which the mother "belongs” to the father. Through this
re-enactment the romantic lover unconsciously seeks to
undo the fact of his father's original and inevitable
triumph, as well as to come to terms with the trauma which
this devastating defeat inflicted (Koenigsberg, 1967).

The Oedipus complex is inherently riddled with
jealousy and rivalry. Not only does the little boy wish
to possess his mother sexually, he also experiences hate-
ful feelings toward his father, who is the major obstacle
to realization of his desires. The rivalry and jealousy
that dominate the romantic relationships of men who have
failed to resolve the Oedipus complex are echoes of child-

hood history. The intensity and ubiquitousness of jealousy

28

in romance harken back to unconscious longings blindly
being replayed in contemporary settings. These feelings
of jealousy are not fully subject to control by the con—
scious ego and, in the psychoanalytic View, they con-
stitute a testimonial to the durability of the earliest

stirrings of the child's affective life (Freud, 1922).

Overvaluation of the Loved One

Since, in romantic love, the woman whose affec-
tions are sought is already involved with another man, to
win her favors would necessarily entail an act of infidel-
ity on her part. Notwithstanding the fact that question-
able fidelity has traditionally been cited as betokening
a serious characterological flaw, the infatuated romantic
grossly overvalues the woman he loves to the point of
idealizing her. This propensity to overvalue the love
object in romantic love is impervious to the powers of
reason or the impingement of reality. How is this selec—
tive impairment of the romantic lover's reality-testing
powers to be explained?

Freud (1910) answered this question by observing
that the romantic man responds to his beloved in the same
way he responded to his mother as a child, viewing her as
unique and irreplaceable. There is, to be sure, a dual-
ism in the little boy's estimation of his mother as

regards her sexuality. On the one hand, the sexually

29

awakened child tries to perpetrate the fiction that his
parents are not sexual beings (that they do not engage in
sexual activity). On the other hand, when the little boy
can no longer deny his mother's sexual liaison with his
father (a recognition that usually coincides with the
phallic stage of development), he equates her activity
with an act of infidelity (Freud, 1910). This jarring
experience narrows the gap between the son's image of a
pure mother and that of a prostitute. Reinforcing the
specific content of the child's conflicting impressions

of his mother is Freud's (1910) general principle that in
the unconscious a pair of opposites often appears as a
unity. Koenigsberg (1967), in a variation on Freud's
theme, held that idealization of the love object in roman—
tic love replicates a defense the child built in the face
of the profound disillusionment he experienced upon learn-
ing of his mother's sexual "transgressions" (her sexual
complicity with his father).

Beigel (1951) concurred that the love object in
romantic love is a mother substitute, but he explained
the overvaluation that permeates romance in terms which
differ from those of Freud. Most fundamentally, Beigel
(1951) believed that the romantic lover, like the ado—
lescent, is more interested in winning his loved one's
approval than he is in possessing her sexually. The

woman's acceptance of her admirer is the sole means he

30

has available to strengthen his tenuous sense of self-
esteem, and it is for this service that the beloved is
idealized (Beigel, 1951).

Jekels and Bergler (1949) advanced a more SOphis-
ticated explanation of the idealization of the loved one
in romantic love which antedated and helped to inspire
Beigel's (1951) formulations concerning this subject.
Having conceptualized romantic love as a quest to
re-establish the sense of narcissistic integrity that
most infants possess in the first months of their lives,
Jekels and Bergler (1949) described the romantic experi-
ence as one in which the ego ideal is first projected
onto the love object and then is partially reintrojected
into the lover's ego. In this pre—Oedipally based view
of romantic love, overvaluation and idealization of the
adored woman constitute an unconscious project to mold
the love object to conform to the parameters of the pro-
jected ego ideal, the contents of which extend back into
earliest infancy. ”Reality" does not pose an insuperable
obstacle to pursuit of this quest. With wry cynicism,
Jekels and Bergler (1949) concluded that in the final
analysis ”there is only the wish to be loved." This
revisionist psychoanalytic point of view claims that
romantic infatuation is best understood as narcissistic
intoxication. Man does not seek to love, but rather to

be loved.

31

The orthodox Freudian explanation of overvalua-
tion of the love object in romantic love is not irrecon-
cilably in conflict with the pre-Oedipal alternative
approach evolved by Jekels and Bergler (1949). Elements
of both theoretical positions may play a role in romantic
relationships. Freud (1931) himself belatedly conceded
that pre—Oedipal attachments are important developmentally,
though he contended (perhaps erroneously) that this was

more true of women than of men.

The Rescue Motif

 

Classically, the romantic lover feels impelled to
rescue his beloved from some real or imagined danger.
This theme has provided considerable grist for the psycho-
analytic mill. At first glance, the rescue motif might
be regarded as reflecting an understandable response to
"objective” circumstances surrounding a given love rela-
tionship. Thus if the woman whom one loves is tempted to
use drugs or faces some other peril, what could be more
natural than a determination to save her? This does not
answer, however, the question of why the romantic lover
consistently falls in love with women who are in some
kind of jeopardy or whom he needs to perceive as requir-
ing his assistance.

Freud (1910), citing his study of screen memories,

fantasies, and dreams, discerned beneath the surface

32

manifestations of the rescue theme an unconscious motive
analogous operationally to the successful secondary
revision of a dream. This unconscious motive was identi-
fied as a wish on the lover's part to have a child (923

like himself) with his first love object--his mother

 

(Freud, 1910). This unconscious wish presupposes a com-
plete identification with his father.

Freud (1910) was less than categorical in offering
this interpretation of the rescue fantasy in romantic
love. He cautioned that rescue fantasies, like dream
material, cannot be understood through recourse to some
universal key. Rather, the rescue fantasy, as well as
the dream, assumes an idiosyncratic meaning for each indi-
vidual which can only be deciphered in the context of his
whole life history and experience (Freud, 1910). Having
raised this crucial proviso, Freud reiterated his belief
that an unconscious wish to give one's mother a child is
the nucleus of many of the rescue fantasies which infuse
romantic love.

There is no unanimity among psychoanalytic theo-
rists about this question. Koenigsberg (1967), for
example, relegated to a position of secondary importance
Freud's interpretation of the unconscious meaning of
rescue fantasies. Koenigsberg (1967) regarded the impera-
tive to rescue one's beloved lady (or, according to the

ideal of courtly love, being rescued by her) as

33

representing the unconscious and/or conscious desire to

be the sole possessor of her affections. In attempting to
realize this aspiration, the romantic lover discounts his
beloved's tendencies to be unfaithful (except, of course,
with himself) and tries to win from her an affirmation
that he alone possesses the qualities necessary to attract
her (Koenigsberg, 1967). This interpretation of the res-
cue fantasy meshes rather well with the conclusion of
Jekels and Bergler (1949) that romantic love is essen-
tially a quest to have one's narcissistic needs gratified.

Intensity and Approach-
Avoidance Conflict

 

Romantic love is, by definition, intense. It
consumes the lover's energies to the extent of precluding
interest in the rest of the world. Yet for all the
intensity and single—mindedness displayed by the romantic
lover, he is more predisposed to fantasize about his
loved one than to seek her favors actively. Should he
find himself in the presence of his idealized beloved,
he more often than not is beset by foreboding and fear
instead of being overcome with joy. Concomitantly,
sexual interest is either renounced, sublimated, or
acted out fleetingly with dire consequences of one sort
or another.

The intensity of romantic love is another indi-

cator that unconscious sources are being tapped

34

(Hitschmann, 1952). The degree to which the romantic
lover is obsessed by his passion may be a measure of the
extent to which he has failed to resolve his unconscious
libidinal ties to his mother. All of this is self—
evident if the basic tenets of psychoanalytic theory are
accepted as valid. Other riddles remain to be solved.
These include the reasons for the romantic lover's pas-
sivity; the origins of the fear he experiences in the
presence of his beloved; and his marked tendency to sub-
limate his sexual interest.

Solutions to these riddles are hinted at in a
strictly literary analysis of courtly love's major fea-
tures crafted by Askew (1965). In the medieval version
of romance, the only "worthy” objects of love were, as
intimated earlier, already married. Although the impas-
sioned lover longed for his chosen lady from afar, he knew
that to have an actual sexual liaison with her meant risk-
ing the danger of instant death at the hands of a more
powerful rival (Askew, 1965). Given this set of circum-
stances, it is understandable why active pursuit of sexual
gratification with the overvalued love object was suffused
with ambivalence, timidity, and fear. It is also worth
noting that the perils attendant upon sexual fulfillment
in courtly love mirror circumstantially the dangers inher-

ent in the original Oedipal situation.

35

Specifically, during the phallic stage of sexual
development, the little boy wants to possess his mother
sexually. In the optimal course of events, this impos-
sible wish is shattered or satisfactorily weakened pri-
marily by fear of castration. Adult males who are highly
romantic have, in the psychoanalytic schema, retained
inordinately strong, unconscious libidinal ties to their
mothers. Their propensity to shrink from direct contact
with the idealized women (surrogate mothers) whom they
ardently desire from a distance is attributable to the
terrible consequences they unconsciously anticipate as
retaliation for realization of their sexual longings
(i.e., castration and/or death at the hands of the
father). Koenigsberg (1967) held that beneath the surface
scripts of medieval courtly love and modern romantic love,
there is a replaying of the Oedipal scenario in which
desire increases as the love object is approached but only
to a point at which avoidance tendencies become predomi-
nant.

There is yet another component which contributes
to the romantic lover's passivity or paralysis vis-a—vis
the woman whom he loves. That component is guilt. Suc-
cess in romantic love means, in unconscious terms, not
only sexual conquest of the mother but also murder of the
father (Freud, 1916-1917). The combination of fear and

guilt helps to explain the observation that while romantic

36

tradition abounds in sexualizing, little sexual inter-

course takes place (Dean, 1962). The suggestion of sex
hangs redolent in the air; its substance is noticeably

absent.

As for the daydreaming that supplants action in
romantic love, it too has its origins in the crucible of
unresolved Oedipal strivings and accompanying castration
anxiety. To paraphrase Freud (1940), the little boy
ultimately renounces masturbation, but not the operations
of his imagination which coincided with this activity.

On the contrary, fantasy often becomes the sole outlet
for sexual expression left to the child, and he indulges
in it more than ever. These early masturbatory imaginal
creations contain identifications with both mother and
father, and they eventually find their way into the indi-
vidual's developing ego, thereby helping to shape his
adult character (Freud, 1940).

Obstacles,_Suffering,

Absence of Consummation

Romantic love seems to thrive on the various and
sundry obstacles to consummation that typically block its
pathway. Often the intensely romantic person wends his
way through a series of unsatisfying and/or unrequited
relationships, none of which fulfill the promise which

marked their beginnings. In sum, tragedy rather than

37

ecstasy is the final destination of most romantic jour-
neys.

Freud (1912) looked upon romantic love as con—
stitutionally unfulfilling and bathed in sadness because
it is an unconscious and doomed quest to win the love of
the first object of libidinal strivings—-the mother-—
expressed in the cathexis of a series of substitutive
objects or surrogates. These surrogate love objects are
incapable of bringing full satisfaction to the romantic
lover since his original impulses are repressed and
intrinsically unattainable (Freud, 1912). The original
love object becomes an idealized fantasy image of the
mother that is retained beyond the grasp of time in the
unconscious (Slater, 1971). Driven blindly to possess
this idealized fantasy image, the romantic lover is prey
to an unremitting craving which resembles that of a drug
addict. Momentary highs are transient and are built on
illusion.

Psychoanalytic theory posits that the compulsion
to repeat repressed aspects of one's personal life his-
tory includes past experiences that neither provided nor
had the potential to provide satisfaction even to instinc-
tual impulses long buried in the unconscious (Freud,
1920a). In utilizing this principle to shed more light
on the psychodynamic meaning of the characteristics of

romantic love, the sexual aspirations of the child must

38

be considered. The little boy cannot sexually possess
his mother. He cannot give her a child. He cannot elimi-
nate his father. His childish wooing usually elicits
rejection, scorn, and punishment from his beloved mother,
especially once she senses the sexual undercurrent in her
son's amorous advances. Despite the inevitable frustra-
tion of these childhood sexual longings and the concomi-
tant pain of unrequitedness and impotence, the compulsion
to repeat the Oedipal drama remains irresistible in those
individuals who remain libidinally attached to their
mothers.

The obstacles and tragic denouements of intense
romantic involvements originate in an unconscious urge
to repeat the original Oedipal situation with all of its
impediments, unrequitedness, and sorrow. In addition,
the inability to consummate romantic relationships
because of obstacles which are unconsciously sought
serves another function beyond that of replicating the
child's futile Oedipal undertaking. That additional
function is to insure that success does not take place
in order to protect the romantic lover from his archaic
unconscious fear of retribution in the form of castra-
tion or death inflicted by his father. The legacy of
unresolved Oedipal desires is to make the romantic lover

wish for failure even as he craves success. The

39

coexistence of conflicting aims remains largely in the
domain of the unconscious.

There are, of course, many forms of expression
which this success-failure, approach-avoidance conflict
assumes in romance. One variation which is particularly
interesting relates to Freud's (1914) distinction between
anaclitic and narcissistic types of object attachment.

The anaclitic object choice is represented as being
typical of males (Freud, 1914). Substantively this sug-
gests that most men seek women who will feed (nurture)
them as they were nourished by their first love objects--
their mothers (Freud, 1914). But the highly romantic man,
saddled as he is by unresolved Oedipal feelings toward his
mother, is simultaneously attracted and repelled by the
anaclitic type of object choice. This generates consider-
able tension and ultimate impasse. The romantic, uncon-
sciously driven to find a compromise solution to the
dilemma posed by forbidden wishes and anticipated retalia—
tion for attainment of those wishes, may choose a nar—
cissistic type of woman who, by her nature, is not willing
or able to provide her lover with the nurturance that an
anaclitic object choice would bring him.

Freud (1914) assessed as "very high" the impor-
tance of the narcissistic type of woman for the erotic
life of mankind. What is the narcissistic woman like?

She loves herself with ardor that matches that of the men

40

who pursue her; she needs to be loved much more than to
love; she is often exceedingly beautiful (Freud, 1914).
Almost always, the narcissistic woman seems enigmatic,
elusive, and unreliable to the men who are attracted to
her (Freud, 1914). Although these qualities catalyze
conscious dissatisfaction and doubt in her male admirers,
the narcissistic type of woman has a special allure for
the highly romantic man at an unconscious level. This
allure derives precisely from her inability and disincli-
nation to respond to the nurturance needs he has harbored
since childhood, the fulfillment of which he fears as
much as he desires.

To recapitulate, the choice of a narcissistic
type of love object is one of the myriad ways in which
the romantic lover unconsciously sabotages realization
of his conscious aspirations. The obstacles which block
consummation and foment tragedy in romantic love are pri-
marily the lover's own creation, not that of cruel gods
or a capricious universe. As long as the Oedipus complex
remains acutely unresolved, fear is the constant companion
of romantic aims. Therein lies the key to understanding
why romantic love is beset by barriers, incompleteness,

impermanence, and suffering.

41

Dependency, Self—Abnegation,
Masochism

 

 

The romantic lover is excessively dependent upon
his beloved. His sense of self-worth and self-definition
pivots almost exclusively on her estimation of him. This
relinquishing of self by the romantic lover is but one
aspect of the masochistic ambiance that surrounds romantic
liaisons. Even more explicitly masochistic is the lover's
extreme humility in his beloved's presence; his dedica-
tion to fulfill her every wish and whim; and his self-
depreciation.

Although orthodox psychoanalytic thought places
the Oedipus complex at the center of its explanation of
romantic love, Freud (1926) conceded that deeply held
feelings of dependency often originate in the early pre—
Oedipal relationship that exists between mother and child.
Freud (1914) examined the romantic lover's inordinate
humility and self-depreciation from what is metapsycho-
logically known as the economic point of View. All love,
given this perspective, involves forfeiture of some of
the lover's narcissistic supplies to the loved one. In
romantic love this tendency is accentuated, and the lover
exalts the love object to the level of regarding her as
a sexual and/or ego ideal (Freud, 1914). Concurrently,
this idealization of the loved one, with the substantial

transfer of narcissism which it implies, renders the

 

 

‘ T‘J ‘l

42

romantic lover almost wholly dependent on his beloved's
acceptance of him as the basis for certifying his self-
worth (Freud, 1914). Unfortunately, for reasons already
discussed (see above), the romantic lover unconsciously
prevents himself from receiving the reciprocity, valida-
tion, and acceptance he craves.

While acknowledging the role of pre-Oedipal fac-
tors, Freud (1940) directly linked the masochistic char-
acter of romantic love with the Oedipus complex and
accompanying castration anxiety. Convinced that unre-
solved Oedipal strivings precipitate a struggle, the out—
come of which may take many forms, Freud (1940) concluded,
"a residue of his [the son's] erotic fixation to his
mother is often left in the form of an excessive depen-
dence on her, and this persists as a kind of bondage to
women" (p. 191). The romantic lover's subservience to
the women he worships results from an unconscious con-
flict which pervades his conscious desires and actions.
Put succinctly, this unconscious conflict produces out-
ward manifestations which translate into his not ventur-
ing to love his mother, but being unable to accept the
risk of not being loved by her. Lacking his mother's
love, the man who is erotically bound to her unconsciously
feels he is in constant danger of being betrayed by his
mother and turned over to his father for punishment

(Freud, 1940).

43

Askew (1965) lent support to Freud's portrayal
of this unconscious Gordian knot with his observation
that the courtly lover is afraid not only of potential

rivals but also of the love object herself. The romantic

 

man's original love object, his mother, has frequently
been both seductive and castrating towards him. The
masochistic posture so often adopted by the romantic
lover may be interpreted as an effort to protect himself
from the image of the threatening mother which still
inhabits his unconscious, as well as a reaction formation
against his own anger at having been rebuffed and
betrayed.

Beigel (1951), having called attention to the
similarities between courtly love and romantic love, des-
cribed acts of symbolic self—castration (like Van Gogh
sending his severed ear to his mistress) which are car-
ried out to impress the love object. The legends of
medieval romance are replete with anecdotes reminiscent
of "the adolescent's obsessional yearning to impress the
chosen female by valiance, self-sacrifice, and self-
punishment" (Beigel, 1951, p. 328). The masochistic tone
of romantic love is echoed in medieval courtly love.

Koenigsberg's (1967) survey of courtly love also
harmonizes with Freud's presumption that there is an
intimate connection between the romantic lover's self-

abnegation and unconscious castration anxiety. In the

44

code of courtly love, the desired lady was invariably a
superior, infallible, forbidding figure who remained
aloof and resisted familarity. According to Koenigsberg
(1967), if the lady were to allow herself to become more
accessible, her lover's desire would wane since castra-
tion fear intensifies as the love object is approached.
Revisionist psychoanalytic theorists (Evans, 1953;
Jekels and Bergler, 1949) have emphasized unresolved p32-
Oedipal fixation to the mother in their explanations of
the masochism which is so prevalent in romantic love.
Evans (1953) asserted that romantic men are dominated by
an unconscious fixation to the image of a cruel and menac-
ing pre-Oedipal mother. This picture of the fearsome
pre-Oedipal mother emerges from projections of the child's
own hostility and hate (Evans, 1953). In adulthood, the
man who remains transfixed by the image of a threatening
pre-Oedipal mother tends to fall in love with women who
stand in the same relation to him as the female spider
which devours its mate. Romantic involvements are
shrouded in illusion and come to a sorry end (Evans,
1953). The male romantic, burdened by frightening mem-
ries of the pre-Oedipal mother, cannot, for all his pro-
fessions of love, surrender himself emotionally.
Emotional surrender would immerse him in his deep, uncon-
scious masochism, the discovery of which he seeks to avoid

(Evans, 1953). Of course, there are extreme occasions in

45

which the romantic lover falls victim to his own maso—
chistic strivings and destroys himself in the process.

While reducing all love to the wish to be loved,
Jekels and Bergler (1949) distinguished between an infan-
tile (pre-genital) and mature (genital) mechanism for
expressing this wish. In the pre-genital case, the lover
experiences the love object as coinciding with the ego
ideal; in the genital case, the lover acts as his own ego
ideal and reduces the love object to ego (Jekels &
Bergler, 1949). Romantic love, with its strong tinge of
dependency and masochism, conforms closely to the pre—
genital schema outlined by Jekels and Bergler (1949).

The debate within psychoanalytic circles concern-
ing the genetic, i.e., temporal, origins of masochism in
romantic love rages back and forth. Koenigsberg (1967)
rejected the pre~0edipal point of View and interpreted the
romantic lover's masochistic submission to his lady in
medieval times as a reaction formation against his own
hostility and sadism. To elucidate this point, Koenigs-
berg (1967), in contrast to Evans (1953), traced the
romantic man's hostility and sadism to the phallic stage
of his development when his mother refused to abandon
her husband and acquiesce to her son's wishes to possess
her sexually. Lurking behind the romantic's obeisance
to his beloved (surrogate mother) is long-standing rage

at having been rebuffed by his mother years ago.

46

To pull the strands of this discussion together,
it is intriguing to consider that the pre-Oedipal theo—
retical perspective is not inherently incompatible with
the more orthodox point of View. It seems plausible that
pre-Oedipal and Oedipal remnants commingle in the uncon-
scious of men who have failed to loosen or break childhood
ties to their mothers. The exact content of the male
romantic's unconscious fixation on his mother is, in all
likelihood, a highly idiosyncratic amalgam of pre—genital

and genital strivings.

Romantic Love and Death

 

L'amour and la mort, love and death, in the annals
of romantic tradition they are companions as intimate as
the similitude of the words which represent them in
French. The literature and folklore of diverse cultures
and epochs are replete with allusions to the mysterious
bond which exists between romantic love and death

(Anthony, 1972; Lepp, 1968).

Introductory Perspectives

Psychologists and literary figures alike have come
to regard death as romantic love's shadow, often illus—
trating their observations with references to the legend
of Tristan and Iseult (Beauvoir, 1961; Evans, 1953;
Rougemont, 1974; Sadler, 1969). Indeed, the first sen—

tence of this famous story of romance announces a "'high

47

tale of love and of death and how at last they died of
that love together on one day; she by him and he by her'"
(quoted in Evans, 1953, p. 75). Although the Tristan and
Iseult legend is perhaps the clearest statement of the
blending of romantic love and death, the same theme recurs
in all of man's mythology (May, 1969). Egyptian myths,
for example, characteristically depict the lover and the
loved one as the slayer and the victim (May, 1969).

Other artistic productions which portray the
fusion of romantic love and death include Michelangelo's
early rendering of the "Pieta," Wagner's ”Liebestod," and

such literary works as Antigone, Romeo and Juliet, etc.

 

(Anthony, 1972; Casler, 1973). In a rare empirical study
of this subject, references to love and to death in

W. Somerset Maugham's short stories were statistically
analyzed using the Chi—square technique and a significant
relationship between these variables was found (cited in
Casler, 1973).

Although sexual impulses are infrequently acted
out or sustained in romantic tradition, sexuality seems
to play a mediating role of some sort in the dialectic
between love and death. In French, the words for orgasm

are petit mort (little death) (Choron, 1964). In general

 

the threads that bind together romantic love and death
remain obscure. One school of thought, represented by

Rougemont (1974), believes that barely concealed behind

48

the passion of romance there lurks a dark desire for
death. An Opposing point of view, promulgated by Brown
(1959) and others, perceives in romantic love an expres-
sion of the human struggle against mortal limits, the wish
to vanquish death. Although Freud did not address himself
directly to the interrelationship of romantic love and
death, psychoanalytic theory contains building blocks for
constructing a far-reaching explanation of this puzzling
union. The issue is, however, far from resolved and all
of the different approaches to the love-death bond war-

rant careful consideration.

The Psychoanalytic Nexus

Preliminary to considering the relationship of
romantic love and death from a psychoanalytic frame of
reference, it is necessary to outline Freud's views con-
cerning man's encounter with his own mortal nature.
Initially, Freud (1915b) regarded death anxiety as a
derivative phenomenon expressive of other concerns since
he believed that in the unconscious every man feels him-
self to be immortal. Freud (1915b) stated this proposi-
tion unambiguously: ”The fear of death, which dominates
us more often than we know, is on the other hand some-
thing quite secondary, and is usually the outcome of a

sense of guilt" (p. 297). Several years later, Freud

49

(1919) was more equivocal about the origins and importance
of man's fear of death.

Without scuttling his conclusion that man feels
himself to be immortal in his unconscious, Freud (1919)
began to recognize that conscious, intellectual uncer-
tainty about death is an important dimension of human
existence in its own right, not just as a secondary phe-
nomenon. Concern about man's mortal nature has occupied
a prominent position in the domains of religion, phi—
losophy, art, and science. Is death anxiety always a
secondary phenomenon? Freud was as ambiguous about this
issue as he was concerning the degree to which conscious-
ness is able to tame unconscious conflicts through the
exercise of will. It is indisputable, though, that by
the end of his life Freud had acknowledged the profound
impact that awareness of death has upon man's experience
of the world.

The psychodynamics of romanticism and romantic
love delineated in psychoanalytic theory (see above)
include a basis for understanding the close relationship
which exists between love and death. If romanticism
itself is largely an outgrowth of unresolved Oedipal
strivings, so too is the ubiquitous presence of death in

romance. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Oedipus discovers

 

he has "unknowingly” murdered his father and married his

mother. Thus, two of the most elemental crimes of

50

mankind--parricide and incest--constitute the warp and
woof of the Oedipus complex, which Freud deemed to be a
universal phenomenon. Death, guilt, anxiety, and love
are all inescapably welded together in every man's "first
romance," his erotic attachment to his mother.

The little boy, locked in combat with his father
in the struggle to win a monopoly over his mother's
affections, naturally wishes to eliminate his rival from
the scene (Freud, 1900). The boy who has reached the
phallic stage of sexual development (three to five years
old) is cognizant that dead people do not return (Freud,
1900). It follows that one common fantasy which the
little boy constructs has at its core the wish that his
father die. This wish, accompanied by its original con-
comitants, remains alive and powerful in highly romantic
men who have never broken their libidinal ties to their
mothers.

Psychoanalytically oriented theorists have
posited that fear of death derives from unconscious death
wishes directed toward loved ones (Dickstein & Blatt,
1966; Fenichel, 1945). Romantic males unconsciously
re-enact the original Oedipal drama and harbor murderous
wishes toward their main competitor (the father) and
their secondary rivals (other siblings). Freud (1900)
reported that dreams which include the death of a parent

usually involve the parent who is the same sex as the

51

dreamer. While attributing this phenomenon to vestiges
of the Oedipus complex, Freud (1900) reaffirmed that
psychoneurotics (and, one might add, intense romantics)
differ only in degree from their more normal counterparts
as far as the resolution of Oedipal conflicts is con—
cerned.

From the vantage point of psychoanalytic theory,
fear of death and romantic love originate in a common
source. In addition to the wish to eliminate his rivals
(father and siblings) in the original Oedipal situation
and the guilt which results from having such wishes, a
second determinant of the romantic lover's fear of death
is castration anxiety itself (Freud, 1918). In man's
pre-history, the father was clearly the castrator (Freud,
1918). The son's fear and hatred of his father in the
Oedipal struggle is, in Freud's (1918) estimation,
exacerbated by this pre-historical legacy. Fear of
death, like dread engendered by conscience, is a conse—
quence of castration anxiety (Freud, 1923a).

How does castration consciously or unconsciously
become equated with death? Fodor (1942) hypothesized that
since castration is a calamitous bodily injury, a real or
imagined threat of castration mobilizes the same defenses
as a threat to life itself. Greenberger (1965) stated
directly her belief that in the unconscious of men, death

is represented by the terrible punishment of castration.

52

Greenberger (1965) went on to explain that at the level
of consciousness most people, regardless of their reli-
gious convictions, View death as heralding the end of
bodily functioning. This being the case, death is asso-
ciated with all threats to bodily integrity, the most
formative of which for males is injury to their sexual
organs in reprisal for incestuous aspirations (Green—
berger, 1965). In a study of the attitudes of psycho—
neurotics towards death, Bromberg and Schilder (1936)
adduced empirical data consistent with the ideas Green-
berger was to advance some 30 years later.

Greenberger (1965) hesitated to endorse Freud's
ranking of castration anxiety as primary and death anxi-
ety as secondary. She also cautioned that the equation,
death anxiety=castration anxiety, is probably not applic-
able to women. Loss of love may have the same meaning
for women that fear of castration has for men (Green—
berger, 1965).

Clinical evidence for the existence of castra-
tion anxiety and the interrelationship between castra—
tion fear and fear of death was discovered by Kobler
(1948) in a small town north of Canton, China. There, he
encountered a bizarre medical syndrome in which the
patient presents himself in a highly anxious state to
his physician with the complaint that his penis is going

to disappear (Kobler, 1948). Even more remarkable is the

53

patient's insistence that the imminent loss of his penis
is a sign of his impending death (Kobler, 1948).

A research project carried out by Sarnoff and
Corwin (1959) produced additional empirical support for
the pr0position that a positive relationship exists
between castration anxiety and fear of death. This study
predicted and confirmed that a group of male undergradu—
ates with high castration anxiety would show a signifi-
cantly greater increase in fear of death after being
exposed to sexually arousing~stimuli than a comparable
group of low castration anxiety subjects (Sarnoff &
Corwin, 1959). Moreover, a strong relationship (signifi-
cant at the .01 level) was found to exist between fear of
death and castration anxiety (Sarnoff & Corwin, 1959).
These results were interpreted to mean that sexual
arousal intensifies fear of death in men whose childhoods
were marked by intense Oedipal conflicts and severe cas-
tration threats (Sarnoff & Corwin, 1959). Put succinctly,
for susceptible individuals (including flaming romantics)
castration fear involves dreading the loss of one's very
being, not just one's penis (Kastenbaum & Aisenberg,
1972).

The interrelationships that link together death,
guilt, anxiety, and romantic love in orthodox psycho-
analytic theory are intricate and incisive. In a bril-

liant synthesis, Freud (1928) focused on the complex

54

connection of love and death in an essay about Dostoevsky
and parricide. As a boy, prior to experiencing his first
epileptic attack, Dostoevsky was afflicted with seemingly
inexplicable spells of melancholy accompanied by fear of
impending death. Freud (1928) attributed Dostoevsky's
episodes of depression and terror to death wishes the
future literary genius was feeling towards his father.
These death wishes were an integral part of Dostoevsky's
unreSolved Oedipus complex (Freud, 1928).

The fact that Dostoevsky's hostile feelings
towards his father became transmuted into death anxiety
suggested to Freud that the great author identified with
the victim of his venomous fantasies. Dostoevsky's
attacks of acute death anxiety also are to be understood
as a form of self—punishment for having directed hatred
and death wishes towards a father with whom he concur-
rently identified (Freud, 1928). Parenthetically, this
theme of death fear as self-punishment meshes comfortably
with Rougemont's (1974) polemic that the wish to die is
an intrinsic component of romantic love.

In addition to the ambivalence fostered by admir-
ing and identifying with a more powerful rival whom one
wishes to eliminate, there is the harsh reality that the
child's intended victim has at his disposal the threat of
castration (Freud, 1928). The father has a fearsome

capacity to punish his son's desire to win exclusive

55

rights to his mother's love. In the normal course of
events, the son's wish to possess his mother sexually and
to murder his father is overridden by concern with pre—
serving his masculinity. The surviving remnants of
incestuous and murderous impulses in the unconscious are
critical ingredients in creating the sense of guilt
(Freud, 1928).

Freud (1928) commented wryly that it is not by
chance that three of the greatest literary masterpieces

of all time-—Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare's Hamlet,

 

and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov-—all are pervaded

 

by the theme of parricide. "In all three; moreover, the
motive force for the deed, sexual rivalry for a woman is

laid bare” (Freud, 1928, p. 188). The very core of

 

romantic love--unresolved, powerful, erotic ties to the
mother--is steeped in murderous intent and fear of death.
No wonder these motifs are highlighted in romantic legends.
In conclusion, while some psychoanalytic theorists
(Bromberg & Schilder, 1936; Friedman, 1961-1962) have
linked death anxiety to factors such as separation from
loved ones and anticipated loss of impulse control, even
they concur with Freud that the primary determinants of
fear of death grow out of castration anxiety, incestuous
wishes, and guilt associated with murderous feelings

towards the father. If the psychoanalytic point of View

56

is valid, all of these primary determinants of death

anxiety interact in romantic love.

The Immortalist Alternative

There is a compelling alternative to the psycho-
analytic mode of understanding the ubiquitousness of
death and fear of death in romantic love. This alterna-
tive concept harmonizes with, but is not wholly contingent
upon, the premise that there is indeed in man's uncon-
scious a primal fear of death. This premise clashes with
Freud's conclusion that death anxiety is a secondary or
derivative phenomenon. More centrally, the immortalist
point of view discerns in romantic love an expression of
man's yearning to transcend the finitude of the human
condition. In this theoretical script, romantic love is
cast as the would-be conqueror of death.

Invoking her own analytic observations, Melanie
Klein (1975) took issue with Freud when she wrote, "there
is in the unconscious, a fear of the annihilation of life”
(p. 29). In her estimation, then, apprehension about
mortality is a fundamental source of anxiety which, like
the struggle between life and death instincts, persists
throughout life. In this framework, the fear of death is
not a derivative of the felt threat of castration.
Rather, castration anxiety may be reinforced by what is

primary death anxiety (Klein, 1975). Rank (1959) likewise

57

rejected the notion that death anxiety is derived from
the fear of castration. He recounted that liberation or
satisfaction of sexuality does not necessarily eliminate
castration anxiety or fear of death and, in point of
fact, may intensify these apprehensions (Rank, 1959).

There are other prominent members of the psycho-
analytic camp, such as Therese Benedek and Mary Chadwick,
who have taken exception to Freud's three theses that
there is no primary fear of death; that the unconscious
is ignorant of death; and that the fear of death is not
a causative agent in psychopathology (Choron, 1964).
Although by no means a majority viewpoint, the conviction
is growing among psychoanalytic thinkers that castration
anxiety and/or separation anxiety are derivatives of a
primordial death fear (Stolorow, 1973).

Using instruments designed to measure empirically
the fear of death at different levels of consciousness,
Feifel and Hermann (1973) found that both mentally ill
and normal subjects shared similar responses to the fact
of their own mortality. At the level of consciousness,
both groups displayed repudiation of the fear of death;
at the level of fantasy, ambivalence predominated; and
at the level of the unconscious, repudiation and ambiva—
lence yielded to dread (Feifel & Hermann, 1973).- The
data developed in this study and another similar one

(Feifel & Branscomb, 1973) tend to support those critics

58

who have challenged Freud's views regarding death anxiety.
Shneidman (1971) has gone so far as to assert that "the
most distressing contemplation one can have is of his own
cessation" (p. 11).

Apart from whether human beings feel themselves
to be mortal or immortal in their unconscious, they expend
prodigious amounts of energy in explicit and disguised
efforts to come to terms with the grim reaper. Christian
doctrine, with its promise of an afterlife for the faith—
ful, is but one dramatic illustration of man's preoccupa-
tion with the limits of his earthly existence. And there
are many others.

These introductory points of discussion provide a
setting for presenting the keystone tenet of the immor-

talist approach to romantic love and death: namely, that

 

romantic love is a manifestation of man's desire to van-
quish death; and Oedipal dynamics require reinterpreta-
tion in terms of this primordial yearning for immortality.
The belief that love is an expression of man's desire for
immortality has been traced back at least as far as the
writings of Plato (Alles, 1933). In more contemporary
times, Binswanger observed that love is often predicated
upon faith it is impervious to death itself (Rheingold,
1967). In developing this line of thought, Binswanger
came to regard love as no less than an heroic attempt to

conquer death (Choron, 1964). When Juliet assures Romeo

59

from her balcony that her bounty and love for him are
infinite, she captures in her promise the phenomeno-
logically boundary—less world which is created by romantic
love (Sadler, 1969).

Conceptualizing in a sociological idiom, Slater
(1963) described romantic love as a dyadic rejection of
societal forces which is doomed to failure. Despite the
fact that it is ultimately thwarted, romance abounds in
defiant symbols that attest to the continuation of love
after the lovers have died. Symbolic of love's immor-
tality are plants or trees which grow out of lovers'
graves entwining (Slater, 1963). Others have also
remarked upon romantic love's transient power to elevate
us beyond temporal limits (Harrington, 1969; Hitschmann,
1952). Since the obstacles so characteristic of romantic
love seem to inflame passion, their omnipresence may
indicate not a wish to fail or to die but rather a desire
to suspend the hand of time which, in the absence of such
barriers, transforms romantic intensity into pedestrian
housekeeping (Harrington, 1969).

Rougemont (1974), perhaps the most acerbic critic
of romantic love, argued that concealed in romance's
affinity for tragedy is a longing for death itself. Yet
even his own words can be read as undercutting this con-
tention: ”The god Eros is the slave of death because he

wishes to elevate life above our finite and creature

60

state" (Rougemont, 1974, p. 311). Biased perhaps by his
philosophical commitment to the necessityof accepting
life's limits, Rougemont (1974) interpreted the striving
for secular transcendence in romantic love to mean a wish
for death.

In contrast, Lepp (1968) suggested that even those
romantic lovers who explicitly embrace death may be grop-
ing for a means of immortalizing and purifying a relation-
ship which they fear is beginning to lose its intensity
and beauty. This reluctance, however fanatic, to relin—
quish an ecstatic experience cannot legitimately be
equated with a longing for death in its own right. In
fact, Anthony (1940) saw in romances of the troubadours
an elaborate code of sexual conduct employed as a defense
against death anxiety. The spiritualization of carnal
desire embodied in this code helped to protect the roman-
tic lover from the physical risks entailed in sexually
consummating a relationship with a married woman (Anthony,
1940). There is clearly a case to be made for the immor—
talist view of romantic love.

In concert with the immortalist position, Rank
(1959), Brown (1959), and other neopsychoanalytic lumi-
naries have reinterpreted the meaning and significance
of the Oedipus complex in terms of the human encounter
with death. Rank (1959) claimed that Oedipus sought to

become his own father. Inveighing against simplistic

61

analyses of the Oedipus myth, Rank (1959) deemed it to be
far more than the story of a son's wish to murder his
father and possess his mother sexually. "The incest
desire is a symbol of personal immortality to which the
ego clings in order to escape the compulsion of a mere
racial immortality [i.e., propagation of the species]
through sex" (Rank, 1959, p. 312). Incestuous desire
goes beyond the sexual dimension. It is expressive of
man's futile but heroic aspiration to perpetuate himself.
Placed in this context, the Oedipus myth represents a
powerful alternative to collective belief in the soul or
hope that immortality can be realized through one's chil-
dren as man tries to cope with the prison of his finite-
ness (Rank, 1959).

Brown (1959) also reinterpreted the Oedipus myth
in terms of man's determination to vanquish death, but
he was more specific than his progenitor, Rank. Having
depicted the Oedipus project as "a revolt against death
generally” (p. 127), Brown (1959) linked this revolt to
unconscious rejection of the biological principle that
separates mother and child.

To elaborate on this point, the pre-Oedipal child
experiences separation from the mother upon whom he is
totally dependent as death (Brown, 1959). The Oedipus
complex represents the desire to reunite with the mother

in a pre—genital sense, thereby recapturing the oceanic

62

feeling of merger endemic to early childhood which
confers the sensation of immortality (Brown, 1959). The
Oedipal ambition to become father to oneself is more a
flight from death than an effort to achieve sexual union
with the mother as an end in itself. Within this frame
of reference, castration anxiety is fused with death
anxiety in that the loss of the penis constitutes loss
of the instrument which makes reunion with the mother
possible.

Brown's (1959) linkage of death anxiety to separa—
tion from the mother and his reformulation of the Oedipus
complex as a quest to conquer death through reunion with
the mother are concepts which have received serious con-
sideration from other theorists. Reik (1944) wrote that
the child's realization of the possibility of losing his
mother's love can no more be coped with than an earth—
quake. It may well be that our first presentiment that
we will die one day is encapsulated in the initial experi-
ence of being separated from our mothers. In researching
the reactions of children to death, Anthony (1972) found
that often the child's anxiety about death assumes the
form of fear of separation from the original love object--
the mother. Concomitantly, a common defense against death
anxiety is unconscious anticipation of a closer union with
the original love object in death than was ever possible

in life. Anthony (1972) explained the recurrent romantic

63

theme of lovers being reunited in death as originating

in a childhood defense against death anxiety. What Rouge-
mont (1974) perceived as a craving for death in romantic
love is, in Anthony's (1972) View, a paradoxical, uncon—
scious belief that only in death is immortality possible.

Stolorow (1973) cited Chadwick's work with
thanatophobic children as tending to confirm Brown's
(1959) reformulation of the Oedipus complex. Chadwick
discovered that children who are thanatophobic create
fantasies of self-procreation as a bulwark against their
fears of death. This finding recalls to mind Brown's
(1959) notion that embedded in the Oedipus complex is
the aspiration to become father to oneself.

Harrington (1969), an eloquent proponent of the
immortalist perspective, saw in romantic love a resurrec-
tion of the god-like sense of invulnerability that marks
our existence in our mother's womb. As long as we are
experientially unindividuated from our mothers, we remain
impervious to the truth of our ultimate aloneness and
mortality. Romantic love restores, for an instant, the
freedom from self and time that characterizes the earliest
moments of life (Harrington, 1969).

Orthodox psychoanalysis and immortalist revision-
ism both recognize that an intimate connection exists
between romantic love and death. It is possible that a

synthesis of these two schools of thought will shed more

64

light on the complex love-death relationship than either
point of view standing alone. Many of the subjects in a
study conducted by Bromberg and Schilder (1936) produced
a fantasy image of death as the perfect sexual union--an
idealized closeness unknowable in life. Desire for this
perfect sexual union was interpreted as an unconscious
incest wish (Bromberg & Schilder, 1936). The orthodox
psychoanalytic mode of understanding the fantasies des—
cribed by Bromberg and Schilder (1936) may be illuminat-
ing but incomplete.

To flesh out this possibility, romantic love may
well be a flight from death through symbolic reunion with
the pre-Oedipal mother 32g a project to supplant the
father as the mother's lover. Death may well be a cata-
lyst for romantic love Egg a punishment feared by man as
retaliation for seeking a forbidden avenue of transcen-
dence. That a symbiosis exists between death anxiety
and Oedipal strivings seems irrefutable. The precise
content of that symbiosis is still a matter of informed
speculation.

Notwithstanding his belief that man feels himself
to be immortal in his unconscious, Freud (1913) discerned
in the phenomenon of love a desire for immortality.
Because man vigorously rejects the inevitability of death,
the myth of the Moerae was created to remind him that

there is no escape from the grim reaper's scythe (Freud,

65

1913). In what Freud (1913) called a clear manifestation
of wish-fulfillment, man constructed a new variation
derived from the myth of the Moerae in which the Goddess
of Death was replaced by the Goddess of Love and by what
was equivalent to her in human form. Freud (1913) further
asserted that this manifestation of man's rebellion
against his mortal nature had historical antecedents in
Western and Oriental mythology, both of which contain
Mother-goddesses who are creators and destroyers at one
and the same time.

Freud's (1913) discussion of the myth of the
Moerae elucidates the promise and the peril each man con-.
fronts in pursuing his unconscious desire to possess the
original love object in his life. Romantic love contains
the certainty of finiteness and death, even as it seduc-
tively promises transcendence of earthly limits. Almost
a half-century after Freud (1913) wrote The Theme of the

Three Caskets, Simone de Beauvoir (1961) sounded the same

 

basic theme: "Thus what man cherishes and detests first
of all in woman-—loved one or mother--is the fixed image
of his animal destiny; it is the life that is necessary

to his existence but that condemns him to the finite and

to death" (p. 154).

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Despite their profound influence upon the human
condition, romanticism and romantic love have generally
received benign neglect from psychological researchers.
Freud, driven by his insatiable curiosity and aided by
his extraordinary breadth of knowledge, sought to strip
love of its mysteries. With the Oedipus complex as its
centerpiece, Freudian theory offers impressive insight
into the psychodynamics of romanticism and romantic love.
In his treatment of these phenomena, Freud displayed more
surety in dealing with the experiential world of men, as
opposed to that of women. The present study will thus
confine itself to investigation of the psychodynamics of
romanticism in males.

Dispersed throughout Freud's prolific writings
are the requisite components for constructing a solution
to the riddle of why romantic love and death have always
been inseparable companions. The present study has
endeavored to pull these components together into a
coherent theoretical structure (see above).

The central problem which the present study pro—

poses to tackle was summed up by Casler (1973) at a

66

67

symposium on love. Referring to the psychoanalytic theory
of love, he stated:
Unfortunately, rigorous testing of many psycho-
analytic theories are extraordinarily difficult.
Some, including those just mentioned, simply do not
seem to be susceptible to any experimental method
yet devised. This is not to say such formulations
lack validity, but only that they lack the type of
evidential support required for scientific accepta-
bility (Casler, 1973, pp. 6—7).

It is a matter of record that as of the present
time, no one has woven together all of the strands of the
richest,rmxfi:inclusive theory of romantic love yet devised.
Nor has there been any attempt to test experimentally the
central tenets of their theory. The present study is
undertaken with a two-fold purpose. First, it intends to
provide a clear, thorough exposition of the psychoanalytic
theory of romantic love, as well as some of the challenges
to it which have been raised. Second, with full cogni-
zance of the obstacles alluded to by Casler (1973), it
endeavors to begin to subject to experimental scrutiny

the major propositions concerning romantic love contained

in Freudian theory.

HYPOTHESES

In his theory of romantic love, Freud asserted
that highly romantic males harbor particularly intense,
repressed incestuous wishes. Viewed on a continuum,
then, psychoanalytic theory postulates that the highly
romantic male has been relatively unsuccessful in
accomplishing the vital task of resolving his original
libidinal attachment to his mother as embodied in the
Oedipus complex. Besieged by his own repressed inces-
tuous impulses and weakened ego strength, the roman-
tic male feels driven in love by forces phenomenologically
experienced as irresistible and external to himself.

These forces are often labelled fate, destiny, or god.

Hypothesis I: Romanticsm in males correlatesppositively

with Oedipal intensity.

Hypothesis II: Romanticism in males correlates positively

with castration anxiety.

Hypothesis III: Romanticism in males correlates posi-

tively with self-rating as externally controlled.

Both orthodox psychoanalytic theory and immor-

talist revisionism acknowledge than an intimate

68

69

relationship exists between romantic love and death.
From the psychoanalytic point of view, death anxiety
is a secondary phenomenon originating in the Oedipus
complex with its attendant conflicts and guilt. Highly
romantic males, it is assumed, have been relatively

unsuccessful in breaking their libidinal bonds to their

mothers.

Hypothesis IV: Romanticism in males correlates posi—

tively with death anxiety.

METHOD

Description of Instruments

The Dean Romanticism Scale

The Dean Romanticism Scale (DRS) was developed
in 1961. It is predicated on the assumption that roman-
tic love and companionship love can be conceptually dif-
ferentiated as polar types (Dean, 1961). The DRS (see
Appendix A) consists of 50 items that express beliefs
about the nature of love. Twenty-seven items of the
DRS were rated as Romantic by agreement of 10 of 12
judges who weighted the direction (Romantic or Compan-
ionship type) of each item. Five items were rated as
Companionship. The remaining 18 items are fillers. Sub-
jects are requested to indicate degree of agreement or
disagreement with each item on a 5-point scale. Each
of the 27 Romantic items receives the maximum score of
"5" when respondents strongly agree with the statement.
Each of the 5 Companionship items receives the maximum
score of "5" when respondents strongly disagree with
the statement. Thus, using a 1-5 scoring format, scores
attainable on the DRS may range from a minimum of 32 to

a maximum of 160.

70

71

Dean (1961) garnered the nearly 150 items from
which the DRS was constructed from scientific writings,
literature, and popular songs. Other than differentiat—
ing between romantic love and companionship love, Dean
(1961, 1964) did not operate out of any particular theo-
retical framework in defining romanticism. Despite this
eclecticism, 19 of the 32 scored items of the DRS seem
consistent with the psychoanalytic definition of roman—
ticism and romantic love (see Chapter 1).

Reliability of the DRS was tested by the split-
half technique, and a correlation of .90 was obtained
(when corrected for attenuation) on the final sample of
194 subjects (Dean, 1961). On the basis of a 1—5 scoring
format, reported observed scores on the DRS varied from
47 to 136 covering almost the entire possible range (32
to 160) and approximating a normal curve (Dean, 1961).
These results argue against the possibility that the

Romanticism scores obtained were merely artifacts.

The Levine Romanticism Scale

The Levine Romanticism Scale (LRS) was developed
for use in the present study. Unlike earlier romanticism
measures (Dean, 1961; Gross, 1944; Knox & Sporakowski,
1968; Rubin, 1970), which were all eclectically derived,
the LRS (see Appendix B) adheres closely to Freud's

definition of romanticism and romantic love. The LRS

72

consists of 44 items concerned with the experience of
love. The LRS items are designed to tap 22 attributes
of romanticism and romantic love found in Freud's writ-
ings. In order to preclude the possibility of a uni-
directional response set distorting the score, half of
the LRS items are worded in a positive direction with
the other half worded in a negative direction. Subjects
are requested to indicate degree of agreement or dis-
agreement with each item on a 5—point scale.

The construct validity of the LRS was established
by having three experts in the area of psychoanalytic
theory confirm that the scale items do indeed appear to
tap the attributes of romanticism and romantic love
delineated by Freud. Using the Spearman-Brown procedure,
a split-half reliability correlation of .84 was obtained
on the sample of 62 male subjects used in the present
study. Obtained scores ranged from a low of 92 to a
high of 150. The mean LRS score obtained in the present
study was 115.98.

Finally, a correlation of .25 was found to exist
between the LRS and the DRS. This reliable (p < .025)
but weak relationship suggests that the psychoanalytic
definition of romanticism and romantic love may be quite
different from the eclectic conventional notions of
romanticism in America upon which the DRS (Dean, 1961)

is based.

73

All previous romanticism measures have been
marked by considerable theoretical inconsistency among
the items of which they are comprised. A secondary pur-
pose of the present study has been to construct and
validate a romanticism scale designed to be wholly con—
sistent with Freud's definition of romanticism and

romantic love in all of its items.

The Blacky Test

 

Blum (1949) developed the Blacky pictures to
provide an instrument for conducting empirical research
pertaining to the psychoanalytic theory of psychosexual
development. Since its inception, the Blacky test has
been used in a considerable number of studies. Kline
(1972) evaluated this projective instrument as a legiti-
mate means for testing hypotheses derived from psycho-
analytic theory.

The Blacky test includes 12 cartoon drawings that
depict a dog, Blacky, and the rest of its family, con-
sisting of Mama, Papa, and Tippy, a younger sibling.
Each of the cards is intended pictorially to elicit
responses directly relating to a specific major Freudian
concept. Of particular relevance to the present study
are Cartoons IV and VI of the Blacky. Cartoon IV is
designed to produce responses which are concerned with

Oedipal intensity. Cartoon V1 is intended to elicit

74

responses centering on castration anxiety. Both Leichty
(1958) and Rabin (1965) have employed the Blacky cards
to investigate hypotheses relating to Oedipal intensity
and castration anxiety.

The Blacky test is presumed to tap unconscious
material. Each subject is exposed to the cards one by
one and is requested to make up a story about each in
turn. The subject is also asked to reply to a struc-
tured set of questions pertaining to each cartoon. Blum
(1949) developed criteria for standardizing scoring of
the stories elicited from subjects as well as their
responses to the structured set of questions for each
card. The standardized scoring procedure outlined by
Blum (1949) results in the creation of dichotomous groups.
It is assumed that the subject will identify with Blacky,
the hero of indeterminate sex, and project his or her
feelings and thoughts when asked to imagine Blacky's
reactions to diverse situations.

The Rotter Internal—External
Locus of Control Scale

Rotter (1966) devised the Internal-External
Locus of Control Scale (I-E Scale) with a view toward
tapping subjects' beliefs about the nature of the world.
The I-E Scale (see Appendix D) is a forced-choice 29-item

scale which includes 6 filler items. The test is scored

75

by the total number of external choices, and is regarded
as a measure of generalized expectancy.

Item analysis and factor analysis of the I—E
Scale suggest it possesses reasonably high internal con-
sistency for an additive scale. Test-retest reliability
for combined males and females over a l-month period
was found to be .72. The I-E Scale correlates satis—
factorily with other methods of assessing the same
variable such as Likert scale, interview assessments, and
ratings from a story-completion technique (Rotter, 1966).
The test shows reasonable homogeneity considering that
items are sampling broadly generalized characteristics
over a number of different situations.

Although the I-E Scale is not built upon the
premises of psychoanalytic theory, Rabin (1976) found
that self-rating as internally controlled correlates
positively with ego strength. This suggests that the
I-E Scale can be germane to investigation of psycho-

analytic concepts.

The Death Anxiety Scale

The Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) is a 15-item
forced-choice test (see Appendix E) constructed and vali-
dated by Templer (1970). It was specifically designed
to measure anxiety and general affective arousal mobil-

ized by the subject of death (Krieger & Epting, 1974).

76

Nine of the 15 items that comprise the DAS are keyed
"true" and 6 are keyed "false" in order to preclude the
possibility that a unidirectional response set might dis—
tort the test results.

The 15 test items of the DAS were selected from
an initial pool of 40 items devised on a rational basis
(Templer, 1970). Seven judges selected the 15 items
which they deemed to be most closely associated with
death anxiety. Reasonable internal consistency was
established by utilizing item-total score biserial cor-
relation coefficients for three independent groups of
subjects. Acceptable test-retest reliability was con-
firmed as well. As for construct validity, the DAS was
administered to 21 psychiatric patients who had spon-
taneously verbalized fear of and preoccupation with
death, and a group of controls matched for diagnosis,
sex, and approximate age (Templer, 1970). The 21 death
anxiety subjects had a DAS mean of 11.62. The control
group obtained a mean of 6.77. A t of 5.79 was signifi-
cant at the .01 level (two-tailed test). DAS scores also
correlated significantly with Boyar's Fear of Death Scale
(FODS), another death anxiety measure, and with a sequen—

tial word association test (Templer, 1970).

77

Subjects
The subjects used in this study were 62 unmar-
ried male undergraduates drawn from the student population
of Michigan State University. Subjects were recruited
from undergraduate psychology courses and a student
dormitory by means of direct appeals and posters. Addi-
tionally, several subjects were obtained through adver-

tising in the State News, a student newspaper. All

 

subjects except for those drawn from psychology classes
received $2 for participating in the study. Subjects
from psychology classes received extra credits from
their professors for volunteering to participate in
research projects. All subjects were between 17 and 27

years of age. Subject variables are shown in Table 1.

Procedure

 

The subjects (Ss) were contacted by telephone
and a mutually convenient time was agreed upon for admin-
iStration of all of the instruments employed in the study.
The experimenter (E) met with each of the 62 Ss indi-
vidually in an office at Olds Hall. At the outset of
the test procedure, the first six cards of the Blacky
were administered (Cards IV and VI being the only ones
directly germane to the hypotheses under investigation
in the present study). The remaining instruments were

assigned in a random sequence in order to prevent any

78

Table 1: Sample Variables (N = 62).

 

 

 

 

Variable Range Mean

Age of Subjects 17-27 21.6

Number of Siblingsa 0- 7 2.6
Variable N
. Only Child 1
Posifilon Youngest 18
F mil Middle 20
a y Oldest 23
Both Living 60
flarinigi Father Dead 1
or a 1 y Father Unknownb l

 

aTwo subjects have twin brothers.

bOne subject is an illegitimate child with no
knowledge of his real father's identity.

order effects. The entire procedure took an average of

90 minutes to complete.

Predictions in Terms of Instruments Employed

To test the hypotheses outlined on pages 68 and
69, the following specific predictions were formulated
in terms of the instruments used in this study. Each
prediction corresponds with the previously stated
hypothesis of the same number.

The variable of romanticism is operationally
defined in two ways, each to be considered individually:

(l) the score obtained on the Dean Romanticism Scale

79

(DRS); and (2) the score obtained on the Levine Romanti-
cism Scale (LRS). The variable of Oedipal intensity is
operationally defined by ratings of free story and struc-
tured question responses to the Oedipal cartoon (Card
IV) of the Blacky Test. Castration anxiety (more spe—
cifically its intensity) is operationally defined by
ratings of free story and structured question responses
to the castration cartoon (Card VI) of the Blacky Test.
Self-rating as externally controlled is operationally
defined by the score obtained on the Rotter Internal-
External Locus of Control Scale (I-E Scale). Lastly,
the variable of death anxiety (more specifically its
intensity) is operationally defined by the score obtained
on the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS).

l. Romanticism in males correlates positively
with Oedipal intensity.

2. Romanticism in males correlates positively
with castration anxiety.

3. Romanticism in males correlates positively
with self-rating as externally controlled.

4. Romanticism in males correlates positively

with death anxiety.

STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA

Hypothesis 1 and 2 involve the use of the Blacky
Test, an instrument which generates data that can best
be arranged in dichotomized groups. In the case of these
tWo hypotheses, point-biserial correlations were com-
puted between each pair of variables to be compared. The
significance of each of the point-biserial correlation
coefficients obtained was assessed with a t-test.

In the case of Hypotheses 3 and 4, product
moment (r) correlations were computed between each pair
of variables to be compared. A critical ratio Z test was
performed to test each r for significance. All hypothe-
ses were stated in a one-directional manner; hence all

tests were one—tailed.

80

RESULTS

Hypothesis 1. Romanticism in males correlates positively

 

with Oedipal intensity.

 

Hypothesis 1 was tested by a point-biserial cor—
relation test between Romanticism (DRS and LRS Scores,
considered separately) and Oedipal Intensity (ratings
obtained on free story and structured question responses
to Card IV of the Blacky Test, considered separately and
together). Two advanced graduate students in clinical
psychology, well versed in psychoanalytic theory, inde-
pendently rated free story responses to Card IV of the
Blacky Test as either "strong" or ”not strong" on the
dimension of Oedipal intensity. Blum's (1949) criteria
for scoring free story responses to the Oedipal card
were strictly adhered to in the present study. Inter-
judge reliability obtained was 90.32%. When differences
in scoring did arise, they were resolved through a review
of the test protocols in question and an exchange of
views between the two judges. The structured question
responses to Card IV of the Blacky Test were rated

"strong" or "not strong" on the dimension of Oedipal

81

82

intensity in accordance with the scoring criteria
devised by Blum (1949).

The point-biserial correlation or r = .08 obtained
between DRS Scores and Oedipal Intensity (as measured by
ratings of Blacky free story responses) was not signifi-
cant. The point-biserial correlation of r =-JT7obtained
between DRS Scores and Oedipal Intensity (as measured by
ratings of Blacky structured question responses) was not
significant. Looking at the data in a third way, a
point—biserial correlation test was carried out between
DRS Scores and Oedipal Intensity on a subsample (N=45)
comprised only of those Ss who were rated as "strong” or
"not strong" on 2232 the free story and structured ques-
tion responses to Card IV of the Blacky Test. The cor-
relation obtained of r = .005 was not significant (see
Table 2 for summary of correlations obtained between DRS
Scores and Oedipal Intensity as measured by the Blacky
Test).

In addition to the DRS, the LRS was designed and
used in the present study to operationalize the variable
of Romanticism. The point-biserial correlation of
r a -.08 obtained between LRS Scores and Oedipal Intensity
(as measured by ratings of Blacky free story responses)
was not significant. The correlation of r = -.15
obtained between LRS Scores and Oedipal Intensity (as

measured by ratings of Blacky structured question

83

responses) was not significant. The correlation of

r = -.15 obtained between LRS Scores and Oedipal Inten-
sity on a subsample (N=45) comprised only of those Ss who
were rated as "strong" or "not strong" on 29th the free
story and structured question responses to Card IV of

the Blacky Test was not significant (see Table 3 for
summary of correlations obtained between LRS Scores and

Oedipal Intensity as measured by the Blacky Test).

Table 2: Coefficients of Correlation for DRS Scores
Versus Oedipal Intensity.

 

 

Hypothesis Variable r N
l DRS Scores versus Oedipal
Intensity (free story .08 62
responses)
1 DRS Scores versus Oedipal
Intensity (structured question -.07 62

responses)

1 DRS Scores versus Oedipal
Intensity (only those 88 rated .005 45
"strong“ or "not strong” on
both Blacky parts)

 

In this table, for N=62, the correlation must be
.21 or higher to be significant at the .05 level. For
N=45, the correlation must be .24 or higher to be sig-
nificant at the .05 level.

To summarize, Hypothesis 1 was not supported by
the data. No relationship was found between Romanticism
and Oedipal Intensity in any of the ways in which these

variables were operationalized in the present study.

84

Table 3: Coefficients of Correlation for LRS Scores
Versus Oedipal Intensity.

 

 

Hypothesis Variable r N

1 LRS Scores versus Oedipal
Intensity (free story -.08 62
responses)

1 LRS Scores versus Oedipal
Intensity (structured ques- -.15 62
tion responses)

1 LRS Scores versus Oedipal
Intensity (only those 85 _ 15 45

rated "strong” or "not strong"
on both parts of Blacky)

 

In this table, for N=62, the correlation must be
.21 or higher to be significant at the .05 level. For
N=45, the correlation must be .24 or higher to be sig-
nificant at the .05 level.

Hypothesis 2. Romanticism in males correlates positively

with castration anxiety.

 

Hypothesis 2 was tested by a point-biserial cor—
relation test between Romanticism (DRS and LRS Scores,
considered separately) and Castration Anxiety (ratings
obtained on free story and structured question responses
to Card VI of the Blacky Test, considered separately and
together). The free story responses to Card VI of the
Blacky Test were rated either as "strong" or "not strong"
on the dimension of castration anxiety by two judges who
scored the protocols independently. Blum's (1949)

scoring criteria constituted the basis for the judgments

85

which were rendered. Interjudge reliability obtained
was 87.09%. Differences in scoring were resolved
through review of the data and discussion between the
judges. The structured question responses to Card VI
of the Blacky Test were rated "strong" or "not strong"
on the dimension of castration anxiety in accordance
with the scoring criteria delineated by Blum (1949).

The point-biserial correlation of r = -.17
obtained between DRS Scores and Castration Anxiety (as
measured by ratings of Blacky free story responses) was
not significant. The point-biserial correlation of
r = 0.00 obtained between DRS Scores and Castration
Anxiety (as measured by ratings of Blacky structured
question responses) obviously was not significant. Look-
ing at the data in a third way, a point-biserial corre-
lation test was carried out between DRS Scores and Cas—
tration Anxiety on a subsample (N=39) comprised only of
those Ss who were rated as "strong” or "not strong" on
993p the free story and structured question responses to
Card VI of the Blacky Test. The correlation obtained of
r =-gu5was not significant (see Table 4 for summary of
correlations obtained between DRS Scores and Castration
Anxiety as measured by the Blacky Test).

In testing Hypothesis 2, the LRS was also used
as a means of Operationalizing the variable of Romanti-

cism. The point-biserial correlation of r = -.14

86

Table 4: Coefficients of Correlation for DRS Scores
Versus Castration Anxiety.

 

 

Hypothesis Variables r N

2 DRS Scores versus Castration 17 62
Anxiety (free story responses) -

2 DRS Scores versus Castration
Anxiety (structured question 0.00 62
responses)

2 DRS Scores versus Castration
Anxiety (only those Ss rated _ 16 39

”strong” or ”not strong" on
both parts of Blacky)

 

In this table, for N=62, the correlation must be
.21 or higher to be significant at the .05 level. For
N=39, the correlation must be .27 or higher to be sig—
nificant at the .05 level.

obtained between LRS Scores and Castration Anxiety (as
measured by ratings of Blacky free story responses) was
not significant. The correlation of r = -.11 obtained
between LRS Scores and Castration Anxiety (as measured
by ratings of Blacky structured question responses) was
not significant. The correlation of r = -.17 obtained
between LRS Scores and Castration Anxiety on a subsample
(N=39) comprised only of those Ss who were rated as
"strong" or "not strong” on 2239 the free story and
structured question responses to Card VI of the Blacky
Test was not significant (see Table 5 for summary of
correlations obtained between LRS Scores and Castration

Anxiety as measured by the Blacky Test).

87

Table 5: Coefficients of Correlation for LRS Scores
Versus Castration Anxiety.

 

 

Hypothesis Variables r N
2 LRS Scores versus Castration _ 14 62
Anxiety (free story responses) '
2 LRS Scores versus Castration
Anxiety (structured question -.11 62

responses)

2 LRS Scores versus Castration
Anxiety (only those Ss rated 17 39
”strong” or "not strong" on ’
both parts of Blacky)

 

In this table, for N=62, the correlation must be
.21 or higher to be significant at the .05 level. For
N=39, the correlation must be .27 or higher to be sig—
nificant at the .05 level.

To summarize, Hypothesis 2 was not supported by
the data. No significant relationship was found between
Romanticism and Castration Anxiety an any of the ways in
which these variables were operationalized. If anything,
there was a slight trend in a direction opposite of that

predicted.

Hypothesis 3. Romanticism in males correlates positively

with self-rating as externally controlled.

Hypothesis 3 was tested by a product-moment cor-
relation between Romanticism (DRS and LRS Scores, con—

sidered separately) and Self-Rating as Externally

88

Controlled (I-E Scale Scores). The correlation of
r = .288 obtained between DRS Scores and Self-Rating as
Externally Controlled was significant at the .01 level
of confidence. The correlation of r = .254 obtained
between LRS Scores and Self-Rating as Externally Con-
trolled was significant at the .025 level of confidence.
To summarize, Hypothesis 3 was upheld by the
data (see Table 6 for summary). There does appear to be
a positive relationship between romanticism in males and

self—rating as externally controlled.

Table 6: Coefficients of Correlation for Romanticism
Scales Versus Self-Rating as Externally Controlled.

 

 

Hypothesis Variables r N
3 DRS Scores versus I-E Scale
Ratings of External Locus .288* 62
of Control
3 LRS Scores versus I-E Scale
Ratings of External Locus .25** 62

of Control

 

*p < .01.

**p < .025.

Hypothesis 4. Romanticism in males correlatesipositively

with death anxiety.

 

Hypothesis 4 was tested by a product-moment

correlation between Romanticism (DRS and LRS Scores,

89

considered separately) and Death Anxiety (DAS Scores).
The correlation of r = .04 obtained between DRS Scores
and DAS Scores was not significant. The correlation of
r = .07 obtained between LRS Scores and DAS Scores was
also not significant.

The data, therefore (see Table 7 for summary)
did not support Hypothesis 4. No relationship was found
between Romanticism and Death Anxiety in any of the ways
in which these variables were operationalized in the

present study.

Table 7: Coefficients of Correlation for Romanticism
Scales Versus Death Anxiety.

 

 

Hypothesis Variables r N
4 DRS Scores versus DAS Scores .04 62
4 LRS Scores versus DAS Scores .07 62

 

In this table the correlation must be .21 or
higher to be significant at the .05 level.

Additional Results
Some additional results which fall outside of
the confines of the original hypotheses are worth noting
briefly. There has been considerable debate both within
and outside of psychoanalytic circles regarding the rela-
tionship of fear of death to castration anxiety (see

Review of the Literature above). Indeed, orthodox

90

psychoanalytic theory calls into question the very exis-
tence of death anxiety as a primary (as opposed to
derivative) phenomenon.

Given this controversy, the present study
included a point-biserial correlation test between Death
Anxiety (DAS Scores) and Castration Anxiety (ratings
obtained on free story and structured question responses
to Card VI of the Blacky Test, considered separately and
together). Blacky Test responses were scored using the
procedures described in the discussion of results per-
taining to Hypothesis 2 (see above).

The point-biserial correlation of r = .02
obtained between DAS Scores and Castration Anxiety (as
measured by ratings of Blacky free story responses) was
not significant. The point-biserial correlation of
r = .09 obtained between DAS Scores and Castration Anxiety
(as measured by ratings of Blacky structured question
responses) was not significant. The point-biserial
correlation of r = .08 obtained between DAS Scores and
Castration Anxiety on a subsample (N=39) comprised only
of those Ss who were rated as "strong" or "not strong”
on 2239 the free story and structured question responses
to Card VI of the Blacky Test also was insignificant
(see Table 8 for summary of correlations obtained between
DAS Scores and Castration Anxiety as measured by the

Blacky Test).

91

Table 8: Coefficients of Correlation for Death Anxiety
Scores Versus Castration Anxiety.

 

Variables r N

 

DAS Scores versus Castration Anxiety
(free story responses) .02 62

DAS Scores versus Castration Anxiety
(structured question responses) .09 62

DAS Scores versus Castration Anxiety .
(only 85 rated "strong" or "not strong" .08 39
on both parts of Blacky)

 

In this table, for N=62, the correlation must be
.21 or higher to be significant at the .05 level. For
N=39, the correlation must be .27 or higher to be sig-
nificant at the .05 level.

In brief, the data obtained in the present study
did not support the orthodox psychoanalytic View that
death anxiety is derived from castration anxiety, or
the corollary that in his unconscious, man feels himself
to be immortal.

Revisionist thinkers within the psychoanalytic

camp have suggested that pre-Oedipal conflicts and needs

 

may play a central role in the psychodynamics of roman-
tic 1ove (see Review of the Literature above). To
explore this alternative to Freud's point of view, a
point-biserial correlation test was carried out between
Romanticism (DRS and LRS Scores, considered separately)
and Oral Eroticism (ratings obtained on free story

responses to Card I of the Blacky Test). Two judges

92

independently scored the free story responses to Card I
of the Blacky Test as "strong" or "not strong" on the
dimension of oral eroticism. Blum's (1949) criteria
constituted the basis for the scoring. Interjudge relia-
bility obtained was 93.5%.

The correlation of r = .22 obtained between DRS
Scores and Oral Eroticism (Blacky free story ratings on
responses to Card I) was significant at the .05 level of
confidence. The correlation of r = .109 obtained between
LRS Scores and Oral Eroticism was not significant but
represented a slight trend in the same direction as that
obtained between DRS Scores and Oral Eroticism.

Blum's (1949) criteria were used to score struc—
tured question responses to Card I of the Blacky Test.
Using this procedure, only 2 of the 62 Ss in the present
study were rated as "strong” with respect to distur-
bance on the Oral Eroticism Card of the Blacky Test.

The striking lack of congruity between free story ratings
and structured question response ratings in this instance
differed sharply from the results pertaining to Cards

IV and VI obtained in the present study (see above).

This suggests Blum's (1949) scoring criteria for struc-
tured question responses to Card I may warrant recon-
sideration. lfiflsn however, is a side issue which falls

outside of the focus of the present study.

93

To summarize, the data in part upheld the possi-
bility that pre-Oedipal conflicts and concerns play a
role in the psychodynamics of romantic love (see Table 9
for summary of correlations obtained between Romanticism

Scales and Oral Eroticism).

Table 9: Coefficients of Correlation for Romanticism
Measures Versus Oral Eroticism Disturbance.

 

Variables r N

 

LRS Scores versus Oral Eroticism
Disturbance (free story responses) .109 62

DRS Scores versus Oral Eroticism
Disturbance (free story responses) .22* 62

 

*p < .05.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

Overall support of the predictions did not occur.
Of the four hypotheses which were tested, only one was
upheld by the data. The following several paragraphs
explore possible implications of the results taken as a
whole. A critical exploration of some of the problems
relating to theory, design, and sample will be incor-

porated into this discussion of the results.

The Findings

 

Hypothesis 1, that romanticism in males corre-
lates positively with Oedipal intensity, was not sub—
stantiated by this research. No significant relation-
ship was found between the variables of Romanticism and
Oedipal Intensity. This result contradicts Freud's basic
premise that romanticism in males originates predomi—
nantly in unresolved erotic attachment to the original
love object--mother. While raising important doubts
about the correctness of Freud's view of romanticism in
males, the data obtained in the present study are far
from conclusive in this regard. The results may be
explainable in terms other than outright rejection of the

centerpiece of Freud's theory of romantic love.

94

95

Freud (1905) compared the experience of intense
romantic love to that of a hypnotic-like state of mind.
Romanticism scores obtained from 85 in the present study
may have been influenced, to an important degree, by
whether the respondent felt himself at the time of his
participation to be involved in a romantic relationship.
Even a highly romantic person may revert to a more dis-
passionate, "realistic" View of love in the absence of
an ongoing romance. If Freud was correct in his asser-
tion that romanticism involves regression to unresolved
Oedipal concerns, it is not a necessary corollary that
high romantics constantly live in a state of regression.
On the contrary, the historical determinism embodied in
the metapsychology of the genetic point of view does not
rule out a continual dialectic between present cir—
cumstances and past events. The present study neglected
to ascertain whether the subjects who participated felt
themselves to be in love at the time the test instru—
ments were administered. This experiential oversight
places some constraints on the theoretical inferences
which can justifiably be drawn from the data at hand.

There is another possible explanation for the
absence of empirical support for Hypothesis 1 which is
conceptual in nature. The present study was built upon
the theoretical assumption that the "special type of

choice of object made by men," described by Freud (1910),

96

is an extreme or pure form of romanticism which infuses
many forms of human loving to one degree or another. In
fact, "the special type of object choice made by men"
may be a singular and psychopathological phenomenon which
differs essentially from popular notions of romantic
love even though it shares some of the latter's char-
acteristics. The small (but significant) correlation
obtained between the DRS (derived from popular concep—
tions of romanticism) and the LRS (based largely on
Freud's description of "a special choice of object made
by men") tends to confirm that there is more of a dis-
tinction than had been anticipated between the phenome-
non Freud delineated and more eclectic definitions of
romanticism.

If Freud's (1910) special choice of object made
by men is a unique, relatively rare, psychopathological
syndrome which shares some of the features of romanticism
but yet is qualitatively different from it, then it is
possible that none of the 85 who took part in the present
study met the criteria of the singular phenomenon des-
cribed by the founder of psychoanalysis. In other words,
although the LRS, in fact, may be an accurate measure of
the special variant of love which was analyzed by Freud,
the sample used in the present study may not have con-
tained a single individual who was extreme enough to be

designated legitimately as a "romantic" in the special

97

sense previously discussed. Hypothesis 1, that there
is a positive correlation between Romanticism and Oedi—
pal Intensity in males, may only be applicable to indi-
viduals who unqualifiedly fall into Freud's (1910)
category of "a special choice of object made by men."
In short, the present study may have suffered from defi-
nitional imprecision.

In yet another vein, revisionist psychoanalytic
theorists (Evans, 1953; Jekels & Bergler, 1949) have

emphasized unresolved pre—Oedipal fixation to the mother

 

in their explanations of the complex fabric of romanti—
cism and romantic love (see Review of the Literature
above). Some support for this viewpoint emerged in the
present study in that DRS Scores correlated positively
with disturbance on the dimension of Oral Eroticism
(Blacky Test free story responses to Card I) at the .05
level of significance. This inconclusive but intriguing
piece of data provides an alternative possibility in
accounting for the overall lack of support for Hypothe—
sis 1. It also suggests the pre-Oedipal approach to a
psychodynamic understanding of romanticism is worthy of
additional investigation. Freud (1926) himself conceded
that the elements of dependency and masochism which he
discerned in romanticism and romantic love might origi-
nate in the early pre-Oedipal relationship that existed

between mother and child. Perhaps erroneously, Freud

98

concluded that pre-Oedipal factors were more important
in the development of women than of men. In his theory
of romantic love, Freud's emphasis on Oedipal fixation
may have been overstated and/or misplaced.

Hypothesis 2, that romanticism in males corre—
lates positively with castration anxiety, also was not
confirmed. This result, coupled with the absence of
support for Hypothesis 1, tends to strengthen the doubts
which the present study raises concerning the validity
and/or comprehensiveness of Freud's View of romanticism
and romantic love.

The methodological and conceptual flaws which
may have marred the present study (see discussion of
Hypothesis 1 above) are potentially relevant in explain-
ing the absence of empirical support for Hypothesis 2.
Once again, however, it is worth considering the possi-
bility that while Freud was correct in emphasizing the
historical remnants of the mother-child relationship in
spawning romanticism and romantic love, he may have erred
in assigning Oedipal factors primacy over pre—Oedipal
determinants. Castration anxiety would appear to be of
negligible importance in the pre—Oedipal attachment of
the child to his mother.

With respect to Hypothesis 1, it was suggested
that Freud's (1910) description of "a special choice of

object made by men" may represent a circumscribed

99

psychopathological state which shares some of the features
of romanticism but yet differs qualitatively from it. It
was further speculated that none of the 83 who partici—
pated in the present study may have met Freud's (1910)
criteria even though the LRS was specifically designed to
measure the characteristics of this syndrome. To further
clarify this possibility, it would be helpful to do a
factor analysis of the responses obtained on the LRS

with a View toward discovering whether any of the Ss used
in the present study scored high on some of the more
blatantly psychopathological items contained in the scale
(for example, masochistic components, tendency to become
infatuated only with married women, etc.). Oedipal
intensity and castration anxiety may correlate posi-
tively with extreme examples of what Freud termed ”a
special choice of object made by men." As the results
obtained in the present research suggest, there may be

no such correlation as regards more commonly encountered
variants of romanticism and romantic love.

Hypothesis 3, that romanticism in males corre-
lates positively with self-rating as externally con-
trolled, was upheld strongly by the data developed in
the present study. Both measures of Romanticism (the
DRS and the LRS) correlated positively with self-rating
as externally controlled (as measured by the I—E Scale)

at the .01 and .025 levels of confidence, respectively.

100

These results gain additional cogency when they are set
against an earlier study (Dion & Dion, 1973) which relates
directly to Hypothesis 3. Using the I—E Scale in con-
junction with various measures of romanticism which they
designed, Dion and Dion (1973) found that proportionally
fewer ”internals" than ”externals" reported having been
romantically attached, and that "internals" experience
romantic attraction as less mysterious and volatile than
"externals."

In the present study, Hypothesis 3 germinated
within a psychoanalytic framework. The central assump-
tions of this psychoanalytic rationale were that uncon-
scious determinants, specifically unresolved Oedipal
strivings, are fundamental to understanding the experi-
ence of romantic love and, moreover, that unconscious
determinants are experienced as unfathomable forces
external to oneself. Freud (1900) put it succinctly

when he claimed that Oedipus Rex teaches that man is not

 

master of his own fate, but must instead bow to the will
of the gods. Freud demystified "the will of the gods" by
designating it as none other than man's own unconscious.
Given the failure of the data to support Hypothe-
ses 1 and 2, which contain the central tenets of Freud's
theory of romanticism and romantic love, it is unwarranted
to interpret the strong confirmation of Hypothesis 3 pre-

viously reported as proof of the validity of Freud's

101

point of view. Although the weight of available evi—
dence does indicate that "externals" (those who feel
themselves to be more externally controlled) are more
romantic than "internals," the origins of this relation-
ship remain obscure.

Stepping outside of the psychoanalytic rubric
for the moment, alternative explanations for the rela-
tionship that appears to exist between romanticism and
the feeling of being externally controlled have grown
out of a social learning approach to understanding human
behavior. Dion and Dion (1973) acknowledge that the
prevailing cultural stereotype of romantic love is one
of an ineffable, overpowering force which consumes its
hapless victims. They (Dion & Dion, 1973) suggest that
"internals" may be less sensitive to the cultural stereo-
type of romantic love because of their penchant for
interpreting events in terms of personal causes. From
this vantage point, ”internals" experience romantic
attraction as less mysterious, less intense, less vola—
tile, and less idealized than their "external" counter-
parts.

It has also been proposed that "internals" are
more averse to being influenced than ”externals." It
might follow that since intimacy intrinsically involves
heightened feelings of influenceability and vulnerability,

"internals" are less susceptible to experiencing romantic

102

love (Dion & Dion, 1973). These arguments, rooted in
social learning theory, endeavor to explain human behavior
in wholly rational terms. In addition to denying the
importance of unconscious determinants, advocates of

the social learning approach rely on tautological think—
ing in their proposed explanations of the phenomenon in
question.

Taking another tack, Rabin (1976) found a posi-
tive relationship exists between ego strength and ratings
on the I-E Scale in the direction of higher internal locus
of control. Freud (1914) believed the idealization of the
loved one in romantic love entails a substantial transfer
of narcissism from the lover to the love object. The
lover's self-worth is largely contingent upon acceptance
of him by the woman whom he adores (Freud, 1914). The
nexus between external locus of control and romanticism
may be understandable in terms of the weakened ego
strength of romantics, especially_while they are experi—
encing a romantic relationship. As previously noted,
Freud (1926), for all his emphasis on the Oedipus complex,
traced the intense feelings of dependency inherent in
romantic love to the early pre—Oedipal relationship
between mother and child. Further investigation may
reveal that regression to pre-Oedipal levels, with con-

comitant manifestations of dependency and weakened ego

103

strength, is a key to understanding more fully the rela-
tionship between romanticism and external locus of
control.

Hypothesis 4, that romanticism in males corre-
lates positively with death anxiety, was not upheld by
the data developed in the present study. In a related
post hoc assay of the data, no significant relationship
was found to exist between castration anxiety and death
anxiety. These results, considered together, further
militate against the orthodox Freudian View which roots
romanticism in Oedipal concerns and regards death anxiety
as a secondary fear that derives from castration anxiety.

Although the findings of the present study call
for rejection of Hypothesis 4, it should be noted that
the measure used to operationalize death anxiety, the
DAS, may be inadequate in its failure to encompass the
multilevel appraisal of fear of death so eloquently
argued for by Feifel and Branscomb (1973). Using fantasy
productions and word association tests in addition to
direct questioning of subjects concerning the extent of
their fears about death, Feifel and Branscomb (1973)
found that the dominant conscious response to fear of
death is one of rejection; that of fantasy or imagery,
one of ambivalence; and that of the unconscious, one of

outright negativity. In addition to other findings,

104

Feifel and Branscomb (1973) concluded that there is
indeed a primary fear of death in man's unconscious.

The DAS is an instrument which is primarily a
measure of conscious attitudes towards death. To explore
more comprehensively the recurrent linking of romanticism
and death that wends its way through the literature of
many epochs, it is important to probe fear of death at
the deeper levels described by Feifel and Branscomb
(1973). The data obtained in the present study consti-
tute only a beginning in evaluating the bond between
romantic love and death. Similarly, a final determina-
tion regarding the hypotheSized relationship between
castration anxiety and fear of death is not possible in
the absence of multilevel approaches to operationaliz—

ing death anxiety.

Directions for Further Research

 

Romanticism and romantic love have long been
avoided as subjects for systematic investigation by
researchers in psychology and related disciplines. Psy-
choanalytic theory contains what is probably the most
comprehensive and ambitious effort to trace the origins
of romantic sentiments. Despite the failure of the
present study to produce overall support for some of the
key tenets of Freud's model of romanticism, the results

represent only an initial foray into a very complex area

105

of inquiry. In the course of conducting and thinking
through various facets of the present study, certain
directions for further research have suggested themselves.

As a general proposition, future testing of the
psychoanalytic theory of romanticism should be designed
to include subjects who are experientially immersed in
what Freud termed ”the hypnotic-like state" of romantic
love. It is at least plausible that regression to Oedipal
or pre—Oedipal stages which may be an intrinsic aspect
of the romantic experience is only activated (and detect-
able) when the psychodynamic constellation of any given
individual is influenced by the present, ongoing experi-
ence of romantic love. This presumes the existence of a
vibrant dialectic between present and past rather than
recourse to some form of sterile determinism. Concretely,
Oedipal intensity or castration anxiety, as measured by
a projective instrument like the Blacky Test, may vary
considerably in response to the balance of forces that
prevails in a person's life at any given moment. The
present study omitted to take this factor sufficiently
into account, and future studies might profit by trying
to encompass its effect.

Romanticism is, by its very nature, difficult
to operationalize and measure. In order to accomplish
this challenging task, it may be necessary to use other

means in addition to romanticism scales. Structured

106

interviews and/or case studies are potentially fruitful
methods for discriminating intense romantics from their
less romantic counterparts. In the discussion of results
above, it was suggested that Freud's description of "a
special choice of object made by men" may be a highly
distinctive, psychopathological state that shares some

of the features of more common variants of romanticism.
If that is the case, then hypotheses based upon Freud's
theory of romanticism ought to be tested using individuals
who stringently conform to the singular type of roman-
tic 1ove that Freud described. In the present study,
none of the 88 may have been "romantic" in the psycho-
pathological sense of the term. This lends additional
support to the notion that means other than scales may

be essential in subjecting to experimental scrutiny
Freud's View of romanticism and romantic love.

Surely, further exploration of the origins of
romanticism should be directed towards assessing the
role of pre-Oedipal factors. Freud, for all his empha-
sis on unresolved Oedipal strivings, conceded that the
elements of dependency and masochism which enter into
romantic relationships originate to a significant degree
in the pre-Oedipal stage of development. Some prelimi-
nary support for this point of view was found in the
present study (see Additional Results above). Future

attempts to investigate romanticism might establish more

107

conclusively that there is a link between fixation at
the oral stage and the propensity to be romantic. A
more ambitious project would entail consideration of

whether and to what degree a combination of pre-Oedipal

 

and Oedipal concerns enters into the phenomenon of roman-
ticism. In pursuing the possibility of an intimate con-
nection between pre-Oedipal concerns and romantic love,
women as well as men should be included in the sample
population.

Finally, the LRS was designed to adhere very
closely to Freud's definition of "a special choice of
object made by men.” The present study established that
the LRS has sufficient construct validity and internal
reliability to warrant additional exploration of the
instrument itself and the uses to which it may be applied.
The LRS should be administered to a large sample of men
and women of diverse ages and social classes. The
results obtained should then be subjected to factor
analysis in order to determine more precisely just what
it is that the scale is measuring. The LRS and a more
eclectically based romanticism scale, the DRS, appear to
be related in a small but significant manner. Factor
analysis of the LRS might elucidate the differences
between Freud's "special choice of object made by men”

and more common variants of romanticism.

108

Casler's (1973) observation that the instru-
ments for rigorous testing of the psychoanalytic theory
of love and other facets of psychoanalytic theory have
yet to be devised represents a caveat that should be
attached to the data obtained in the present study.
Before Freud's emphasis on the role of the Oedipus complex

in romanticism and romantic love can be conclusiveiy dis-

 

carded, it will be necessary to discover measures in addi-
tion to the Blacky Test which can tap variables like
Oedipal intensity and castration anxiety. The present
study, therefore, should not discourage further testing

of the major premises of Freud's view of romanticism and
romantic love.

Dr. Norman Abeles of Michigan State University
has raised one additional observation which has poten-
tially important implications for future research relat-
ing to psychoanalytic concepts. This observation is that
the vast majority of studies which have tried to estab-
lish correlations between data elicited by projective
techniques and data elicited by appeals to more conscious
levels of functioning (such as questionnaires) have
failed to obtain significant results. Researchers should
be cognizant of the difficulties that may arise in
attempting to correlate experimental results which origi-
nate at different levels of consciousness. This diffi-

culty may well have been in evidence in the present study.

SUMMARY

This study was designed to synthesize and articu-
late a psychoanalytic theory of romanticism and romantic
love, and to generate and test certain hypotheses relat-
ing to that theory. Freud regarded unresolved con-
flicts stemming from the Oedipus complex as the crucible
in which romanticism in males develops.

In the present study, it was hypothesized that
romanticism in males would correlate positively with
Oedipal intensity, castration anxiety, and death anxiety
(which in orthodox psychoanalytic circles is viewed as
a derivation of castration anxiety). It was further
theorized that romanticism in males would correlate
positively with self—rating as externally controlled.

To test the above hypotheses, Dean's (1961)
Romanticism Scale (DRS) was used as a measure of Roman-
ticism. In addition, the Levine Romanticism Scale (LRS)
was developed specifically for this study and was con-
structed to conform closely to the characteristics of
romanticism delineated by Freud. Cards IV and VI of the
Blacky Test (Blum, 1949) were used to measure, respec-
tively, Oedipal Intensity and Castration Anxiety. The

DAS (Templer, 1970) was used to measure Death Anxiety.

109

110

The Rotter Internal—External Locus of Control Scale was
employed to measure self-rating as externally controlled.
All of these instruments were administered to 62 unmar-
ried male university undergraduates.

Overall support for the hypotheses advanced in
this study did not occur. Of the four main hypotheses,
only Hypothesis 3, that romanticism in males correlates
positively with self-rating as externally controlled,
was confirmed by the data. Additionally, some prelimi-
nary evidence was developed which indicates that pre-
Oedipal concerns may be more crucial to an understanding
of romanticism than Freud envisaged.

In discussing the results of the present study
and suggesting possible directions for future research,
problems of theory and design were touched upon. It was
suggested that problems of definition regarding the con-
tent of romanticism remain and that the quest to develop
new measures of this phenomenon be continued. It was
also pointed out that additional analysis of the LRS
might elucidate the distinctions that exist between
Freud's (1910) definition of "a special choice of object

made by men" and more eclectic notions of romanticism.

APPENDICES

111

APPENDIX A

THE DEAN ROMANTICISM SCALE

Most people marry for love; but love enough to
marry on is difficult to describe. Below are statements
we have obtained from young people in love, from maga-
zines, from newspapers, etc. Would you please give us
your opinion? THERE ARE NO "RIGHT" OR "WRONG" ANSWERS.
Your responses will be kept strictly confidential.

Please read each statement carefully. Then mark
each statement with the response from those listed below
which most nearly fits your beliefs.

SA -- indicates Strongly Agree
A -- indicates Agree
U -- indicates Uncertain

D -- indicates Disagree
SD -- indicates Strongly Disagree

1. Love is a mutual responsiveness.

2. Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes
one person on account of another person.

3. People truly in love try to play down their
differences.

4. Deep love grows through many shared experiences.

5. One can't help falling in love if he (she) meets
the right person.

6. Parents should not attempt to influence their
children's selection of a mate.

7. Love includes willing self-restraint, at times,
for the sake of the other person.

8. True love wouldn't be affected by poverty.

9. "Every time we are near each other we get a
funny feeling inside" is a good sign of being
in love.

10. One doesn't "fall in love;" it has to be
achieved.

112

ll.

12.

13.
14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

113

SA —- indicates Strongly Agree

A -- indicates Agree

U -- indicates Uncertain

D -- indicates Disagree

SD -- indicates Strongly Disagree

The wish to be with someone constantly is a good
test of love.

Perfect love means one is always satisfied with
his (her) partner.

"Marriage for convenience" can be successful.
One can truly love only once.

True love is not based at all on physical
attraction.

All love is tainted, at times, with some anger
and hostility.

Problems always work out when two people are
really in love.

People in love are often oblivious to their sur-
roundings.

Real love can only be founded on a close acquain—
tance with the whole personality.

Love usually makes the heart beat faster.

The strength of your feelings towards each other
demonstrates the fact that you were made for
each other.

Love can develop after marriage.

People do not need to have a long engagement if
they are made for each other.

True love lasts forever.

It's impossible to think one is in love when he
(she) is only "in love with love."

Love sometimes gives one a sickly feeling.

When in love, it is hard to see the other's
faults.

28.

29.
30.
31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.
38.
39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

114

SA —- indicates Strongly Agree
A —- indicates Agree

U -- indicates Uncertain

D —- indicates Disagree

D

S -- indicates Strongly Disagree

Expecting to find all things in one woman or man
in unrealistic.

A loss of appetite usually accompanies true love.
Love knows no bounds.

The marriage ceremony marks the beginning of true
love, not the culmination of it.

Love is an "all-or-nothing" feeling; there is
no in-between.

One in love should just love and not reason why.

True love grows out of a deep respect for each
other.

One in love will never be bored.

One shouldn't strive to maintain love; it main-
tains itself.

Marriage requires hard work in order to succeed.
Love will find a way..

If it's true love, one won't need to actively
seek the other.

The way peOple fall in love is largely deter-
mined by the society they live in.

If one's marriage turns out to be a failure, it
was because he (she) chose the wrong mate.

Happiness is inevitable in true love.
Love doesn't happen, it's learned.

People in love are always considerate of each
other.

Life without being in love is barren.

46.

47.
48.
49.

50.

115

SA —- indicates Strongly Agree

A —- indicates Agree

U -- indicates Uncertain

D —- indicates Disagree

SD -— indicates Strongly Disagree

"Love at first sight" is physical attraction,
not real affection.

It's love if it makes you feel good.
Opposites attract each other.

One can be in love and still want his (her)
own way.

You really fall in love just once in a lifetime.

APPENDIX B

THE LEVINE ROMANTICISM SCALE

Please read each statement carefully. Then mark

each statement with the response from those listed below
which most accurately represents ygur experience and point

of view.

10.

11.

12.

 

THERE ARE NO "RIGHT” OR "WRONG” ANSWERS.

SA -- indicates Strongly Agree
A -- indicates Agree

U -- indicates Uncertain

D -- indicates Disagree

D

S -- indicates Strongly Disagree

What I am in love, it isn't all that intense an
experience for me.

Based on my own experience, the deepest love is
not returned (reciprocated).

When I am in love, I am active and about a lot.

When I am in love, I often feel worthless and
inferior.

When I am in love, I try to obey my beloved's
every wish and command.

I often find it frightening to be with the woman
I love.

Sex is the most important factor in love for me.

Love is more a ”meeting of souls" than a matter
of sex.

For me, love is an overwhelming and intense
experience.

When I am in love, I become more involved and
interested in the world around me.

When I am in love, I feel confused, irrational,
and less certain of my judgment.

Love seems to inspire me to act.

116

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.
18.
19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

117

SA -- indicates Strongly Agree
A —— indicates Agree

U -- indicates Uncertain

D -- indicates Disagree

D

S -- indicates Strongly Disagree

When I am in love, it's hard for me to do any-
thing.

Even when I am in love, I feel I could live
without my beloved.

I usually fall in love with a woman who does not
need my protection.

Even though I am in love, I recognize my
beloved's faults.

To be in love is the opposite of suffering.
Love is a matter of fate, not choice.
Love always seems to end badly for me.

As a rule, my love relationships are full of
obstacles.

In general, what my beloved thinks of me does
not affect my self-image.

I can only love deeply when that love is
returned.

When I am in love, I feel I couldn't live with-
out my beloved.

I am never afraid to be with my beloved.

When I am in love, I lose interest in everything
else.

I am much more likely to fall in love with a
woman who is involved with another guy than
with a woman who is unattached.

For me, love usually ends in fulfillment and
satisfaction.

I find true love takes a long time to build.

For me, jealousy is very much a part of love.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.
36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

118

SA —- indicates Strongly Agree

A —— indicates Agree

U -— indicates Uncertain

D -- indicates Disagree

SD -- indicates Strongly Disagree

I often seem to fall in love with a woman who
needs to be rescued.

I am much more likely to fall in love with a
woman who is unattached than with a woman who
is involved with another guy.

When I am in love, I feel great about myself.

For me, true love is love at first sight.

When I am in love, I daydream and fantasize
more than act.

To love is to suffer, based on my experience.
Love is a matter of choice, not destiny.

I generally feel equal or superior to the woman
I love.

Usually my love relationships are free of
obstacles.

I usually feel very inadequate in relation to
my beloved.

Even though I am in love, I don't put my
beloved's wishes ahead of my own.

When I am in love, what I think of myself depends
almost entirely on what my beloved thinks of me.

When I am in love, my beloved seems perfect.

When I am in love, I feel clear—headed, rational,
and sure of my judgment.

When I am in love, I'm rarely, if ever, jealous.

APPENDIX C

CARTOONS USED IN THE BLACKY PICTURES TECHNIQUE

 

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119

 

APPENDIX D

SOCIAL REACTION INVENTORY
(I-E SCALE)

We are interested in the way different people look at
things which happen in our society. We have listed below
29 pairs of statements. You will probably agree more with
one of the two statements than you will with the other one.
Sometimes neither of the two statements will really say
what you would like for it to say. If this happens, just
choose the one which is closest to what you believe.

There are no right or wrong answers. Just choose the one
which is closest to what you really believe, and circle
the appropriate letter.

 

Go ahead and start. Remember to choose the one which is
closest to what you really believe.

***********

l. A. Children get into trouble because their parents
punish them too much.

B. The trouble with most children nowadays is that
their parents are too easy with them.

2. A. Many of the unhappy things in people's lives are
partly due to bad luck.

B. People's misfortunes result from the mistakes they
make.

3. A. One of the major reasons why we have wars is
because people don't take enough interest in
politics.

B. There will always be wars, no matter how hard
people try to prevent them.

4. A. In the long run people get the respect they deserve
in this world.

B. Unfortunately, an individual's worth often passes
unrecognized no matter how hard he tries.

120

121

Social Reaction Inventory

Continued
5. A. The idea that teachers are unfair to students is
nonsense.

B. Most students don't realize the extent to which
their grades are influenced by accidental happenings.

6. A. Without the right breaks one cannot be an effective
leader.

B. Capable people who fail to become leaders have not
taken advantage of their opportunities.

7. A. No matter how hard you try some people just don't
like you.

B. People who can't get others to like them don't
understand how to get along with others.

8. A. Heredity plays the major role in determining one's
personality.

B. It is one's experiences in life which determine
what they're like.

9. A. I have often found that what is going to happen
will happen.

B. Trusting to fate has never turned out as well for
me as making a decision to take a definite course
of action.

10. A. In the case of the well prepared student there is
rarely if ever such a thing as an unfair test.

B. Many times exam questions tend to be so unrelated
to course work that studying is really useless.

11. A. Becoming a success is a matter of hard work, luck
has little or nothing to do with it.

B. Getting a good job depends mainly on being in the
right place at the right time.

12. A. The average citizen can have an influence in govern-
ment decisions.

B. This world is run by the few people in power, and

there is not much the little guy can do about it.

122

Social Reaction Inventory

Continued
13. A. When I make plans, I am almost certain that I can
make them work.

B. It is not always wise to plan too far ahead because
many things turn out to be a matter of good or bad
fortune anyhow.

14. A. There are certain peOple who are just no good.

B. There is some good in everybody.

15. A. In my case getting what I want has little or nothing
to do with luck.

B. Many times we might just as well decide what to do
by flipping a coin.

16. A. Who gets to be the boss often depends on who was
lucky enough to be in the right place first.

B. Getting people to do the right thing depends upon
ability, luck has little or nothing to do with it.

17. A. As far as world affairs are concerned, most of us
are victims of forces we can neither understand,
nor control.

B. By taking an active part in political and social
affairs the people can control world events.

18. A. Most people don't realize the extent to which their
lives are controlled by accidental happenings.

B. There really is no such thing as "luck."

19. A. One should always be willing to admit mistakes.

B. It is usually best to cover up one's mistakes.

20. A. It is hard to know whether or not a person really
likes you.

B. How many friends you have depends upon how nice a

person you are.

123

Social Reaction Inventory

Continued
21. A. In the long run the bad things that happen to us
are balanced by the good ones.
B. Most misfortunes are the result of lack of ability,
ignorance, laziness, or all three.
22. A. With enough effort we can wipe out political
corruption.
B. It is difficult for people to have much control
over the things politicians do in office.
23. A. Sometimes I can't understand how teachers arrive
at the grades they give.
B. There is a direct connection between how hard I
study and the grades I get.
24. A. A good leader expects people to decide for them-
selves what they should do.
B. A good leader makes it clear to everybody what their
jobs are.
25. A. Many times I feel that I have little influence over
the things that happen to me.
B. It is impossible for me to believe that chance or
luck plays an important role in my life.
26. A. People are lonely because they don't try to be
friendly.
B. There's not much use in trying too hard to please
people, if they like you, they like you.
27. A. There is too much emphasis on athletics in high
school.
B. Team sports are an excellent way to build character.
28. A. What happens to me is my own doing.
B. Sometimes I feel that I don't have enough control

over the direction my life is taking.

124

Social Reaction Inventory
Continued

29. A. Most of the time I can't understand why politicians
behave the way they do.

B. In the long run the people are responsible for bad
government on a national as well as on a local
level.

APPENDIX E

THE DEATH ANXIETY SCALE

Please read the following statements carefully. Then indi-
cate whether the statement is true or false for you by
circling either T or F.

There are no right or wrong answers. Just choose the one
which most closely applies to you.

T F 1
T F 2
T F 3
T F 4
T F

T F

T F

T F

T F 9
T 10.
T F 11
T F 12
T F 13.
T F 14
T F 15

m ‘3 <3 U

***********

I am very much afraid to die.
The thought of death seldom enters my mind.

It doesn't make me nervous when people talk
about death.

I dread to think about having to have an
operation.

I am not at all afraid to die.
I am not particularly afraid of getting cancer.
The thought of death never bothers me.

I am often distressed by the way time flies so
very rapidly.

I fear dying a painful death.

The subject of life after death troubles me
greatly.

I am really scared of having a heart attack.
I often think about how short life really is.

I shudder when I hear peOple talking about a
World War III.

The sight of a dead body is horrifying to me.
I feel that the future holds nothing for me

to fear.

125

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126

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