Description

In this episode of Hot Takes on the Classics, Emily Maeda and Tim McIntosh explore how Western art and music have depicted the many faces of love—from divine ecstasy to tragic longing to the gentle affections of pastoral life. They move through Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa, and Bruegel’s The Wedding Dance, examining how artists across eras have tried to portray the beauty, complexity, and vulnerability of human and divine love. Through music, sculpture, and painting, Emily and Tim reflect on what these works reveal about desire, the human soul, and our longing for harmony.

Episode Outline

• Opening reflections on how music and visual art express forms of love beyond words
• Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and the emotional world of shepherds
• The pastoral tradition and the association of shepherds with simplicity, joy, and musical beauty
• Pieter Bruegel’s The Wedding Dance and the communal joys of embodied love
• Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa as a depiction of divine, overwhelming union
• The ambiguity of mystical imagery—sensual, spiritual, or both?
• Shift to tragic eros in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
• Dido’s lament as one of the most powerful expressions of forsaken love
• Classical echoes: Virgil’s Aeneid and Dido’s place in the Inferno
• Closing reflections on what art and music teach us about the varieties of love

Key Topics & Takeaways

• Music as a Language of Affection and Joy: Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony evokes the emotional clarity, peace, and playfulness associated with shepherds—figures who embody a simpler, more integrated relationship to nature and love.
• The Pastoral Tradition and Innocent Desire: From classical poetry to Renaissance art, shepherds symbolize a state of harmony where affection and desire are uncorrupted by ambition or social pretense.
• Embodied Celebration in Bruegel’s The Wedding Dance: Bruegel captures the physicality, joy, and communal warmth of love—reminding us that affection is often expressed through bodies in motion.
• The Ecstatic Union in Bernini’s St. Teresa: Bernini dramatizes a moment of mystical encounter that blurs the line between spiritual and sensual love, inviting viewers to consider the intensity of divine desire.
• Dido’s Tragic Eros in Purcell and Virgil: Dido’s grief in Dido and Aeneas echoes the literary Dido of the Aeneid, revealing how erotic love can elevate and devastate. Her lament remains one of the most moving expressions of abandonment in Western music.

Questions & Discussion

• How does pastoral imagery shape our understanding of innocent love?
  Consider how shepherds represent harmony, simplicity, and musical beauty. Does this imagery still resonate with modern listeners? What role do bodies play in the expression of love?
• Reflect on Bruegel’s Wedding Dance. 
  How does embodied joy communicate forms of affection that words cannot? Is Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa primarily spiritual or sensual?
• Discuss whether the sculpture’s intensity reveals something essential about divine love—or whether it intentionally makes us uncomfortable.
  What makes Dido’s lament so emotionally powerful?
• Think about how Purcell uses musical repetition, silence, and harmonic descent to portray a soul collapsing under the weight of loss.
  How do these artworks together expand our understanding of love? Explore how divine love, tragic love, and communal love form a fuller picture than any single work could express.

Suggested Reading

• The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis
• The Aeneid by Virgil  
• The Holy Bible 
• Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”) by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Dido and Aeneas (“Dido’s Lament”) by Henry Purcell 
• The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 
• Various sculptures, fountains, architectural works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
• As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare
• All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare