love map

from the Yale Library's cartographic collections (check 'em out here. There's some cool stuff here, which I'll be putting up later) comes this 18th century German map of love.

The regions of love, as seen by a somewhat quirky 18th century German, are fascinating. Although the text is a little blurred and pixelated in places, and the language is archaic, I'll try to translate. From left to right, then top to bottom we have:
• Meer der Verzweifelung The Sea of Suffering
• an unnamed region including "divorce", "hate", and "displeasure"
• Land der Glucklichen Liebe The Land of Happy Love, which includes "enjoyment", "soul's rest", "tenderness", and "the stream of joy"
• Land der Traurenden Liebe The Land of Sad Love, which includes "morass of deep feelings", "Werther's grove" (presumably the character from Goethe's book), "melancholy", and "the hopeless mountains"
• Land der Luste Land of Lusts, including, "sensuality" and "weakness"
• Land der Hagestolze Land of (narrow pride?) which includes "the village of stupidity", "frigidity", "revulsion", and "annoyance"
• Gebiet der Fixen Ideen Region of Fixed Ideas, including "bridge of hope", "city of dreams", "restlessness", "the brook of sweet tears", "field of sighs", "plain of demands", and "infidelity"
• Land der Jugend Land of Youth including "trifling games", "river of wishes", "hill of stimulation", "spring of joy", and "funland"
• Land der Ruhe Land of Rest including "grandfather's lull", "even-temperedness", and "man's sensibility"

Of course, all of this is from the male viewpoint. I mean that this is a map of men's love, or love as it was supposedly experienced by men at that time. Women, of course, being the objects of love, aren't on the map; women's experiences of love aren't mapped. Or maybe I'm wrong about that, but the "grandfather's rest" and "man's sensibility" locations in "Land of Rest" are gender specific.

The language, even in my poor translation, is old-fashioned, but has this map changed all that much? I love the "region of fixed ideas" (a "fixed idea" being also an "idee fixe", or obsession) for its own name, and also for the fact that it is centered on the map. The fixed ideas themselves are not mentioned, but rather the results of having fixed ideas about love, which keeps this map relevant. I'd find it more historically interesting if the fixed ideas themselves were spelled out, but there's a general wisdom to this section of the map that might be upset by specifics.

And I love that "Werther" was already a marker for sad love, three years after its publication. It sort of still is, isn't it?

(from A Guide to Unusual Maps, via fluid thinking.)