Comparing The Great Gatsby and pre-1900 romantic poetry: How have the authors presented love as unconditional and permanent?

DEFINE: Unconditional love is unchanging and without limitations; it is most closely described as agape love - a love that transcends, that serves regardless of circumstances. When it is presented in literature within a romantic relationship, however, it is often revealed as naive and challenged by society's changing attitude to monogamy. COMPARE: Fitzgerald shows how unconditional love can be dangerous in a world inhabited by "careless people" who are disloyal and motivated by social status and money. Contrastingly, in Sonnet 116, Shakespeare celebrates unconditional love as an "ever fixed marke" and as an ennobling force. Thirdly, Lovelace presents unconditional love as an absurd and restrictive notion. CONTEXT: In his 20th century tragedy, Fitzgerald shows how unconditional love and monogamy was being challenged by the promiscuous, opulent, post-war "careless people" of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald is typical as a modernist writer with a desire to present life "the way it was" (Hemingway). Contrastingly, 400 years earlier, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 extols unconditional love at a time when society valued monogamy and Christian marriage. Lovelace, as a 17th century Cavalier poet rejected the religious values of the metaphysical poets and instead celebrated a carpe diem spirit of sexual love which opposed that of unconditional love. THE GREAT GATSBY: The Great Gatsby is a tragedy which is fulfilled in the novel's denouement: Gatsby is sacrificed for the sins of others. His unconditional love for Daisy leads to his taking the blame for Myrtle's death "of course I'll say it was me". Fitzgerald presents him sympathetically, implying parallels with Jesus on the cross as Gatsby "shouldered his mattress" to the pool and whose blood shed left a "thin red circle in the water". Fitzgerald also juxtaposes Gatsby's tragic end with Wilson's - also a victim of unconditional love - as his body "found a little way off ... the holocaust was complete". The term holocaust meaning sacrifice or extensive loss of life - and even more poignantly so for readers post-1945 - suggests that 1920s society was no place for the ideals of those who "believed in the green light" of unconditional permanent love. Fitzgerald uses Nick's increasing admiration for Gatsby and disgust for the careless people "who smashed things up" to warn us about what happens when people's affections are driven by self-interest, capitalism and a "meanness of spirit" (Clark). The essay would continue with a paragraph on Sonnet 116, another for The Scrutiny, and then a conclusion to summarise the main themes covered in the essay.