The top couples in literature (I tried to take in society's views, not just my own prejudices), in no particular order.
1. Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice). They're just such appealing characters, so very different, Elizabeth with her wit and fire and vivacity, as well as her stubbornness and her judgemenatalism, Darcy with his urbanity and reserve and his overwhelming drive to do what's right, as well as his arrogance and his pride, but they work so well together. Each plays off the other perfectly. From the point of view of Elizabeth, we learn to loathe Darcy, haughty, disdainful, and always convinced that he knows what's right, but later, after the wonderful proposal scene where Elizabeth shocks Darcy with a flatout refusal (';From the very beginning, ... your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, ... have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.';), our perceptions are shifted. Darcy, shocked by her assessment of his faults, strives to change, and Elizabeth, slowly and unwillingly, begins to realize that perhaps she has misjudged him. Both characters, though likeable in their own ways, are riddled with pride and prejudice, and it's only when they shed these that they can find true love.
2. Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte). I like to think of Jane Eyre as the Everyman's (or Woman's) romance. Jane Eyre is a wonderful book for many reasons - its beautiful writing, its social criticism, its religous philosiphising (interesting, even if, like me, you don't subscribe to Bronte's personal beliefs), and as a fine example of the English gothic. However, it's really the romance between Jane and Rochester that drives the book. Both characters have their flaws. Jane has her stubbornness, her prejudice, her judgmentalism, and her rather prim English unromanticism. Rochester is manipulative, self-pitying, capricious, and judgemental (though in a different way than Jane). Both of them are ugly, and, for different reasons, socially ill favored (Jane is poor and unconnected, while Rochester's peculiar marital situation and his odd character make him less than sought after). But they have chemistry. They have chemistry like anything. And, despite the best efforts of society, fate, and their own foolish flaws, they live happily ever after. This is a love story for the awkward, the unpopular, the self-doubting, the plain, the poor, and the peculiar. It is love triumphant.
3. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet (Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare). Probably the most famous couple of all time. Both are young, impulsive, and dissatisfied. Both are bound by their persons and their families. Their eyes meet across a crowded ballroom. The rest is history. The quintissential forbidden love, brought into life by Shakespeare's gorgeous verse. What more need be said?
4. Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler (Gone With the Wind, by Scarlett Mitchell). I'll admit it right away, I haven't read Gone with the Wind, or seen the movie. I just know that they are considered to be one of the best couples of all time.
5. Catherine Lynton and Heathcliffe (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte). Haven't read it either.
6. Maid Marion and Robin Hood (Robin Hood, folk legend). He's an dashing outlaw living in defiance of an unjust and unlawful monarch. She's a rebellious noblewoman who is the ward of said monarch, and she has no mean skills with a sword. True love, freedom, good deeds, defiance of authority, action, chivalry, merrie olde englande... This story's got it all.
7. Guinevere and Lancelot (King Arthur, Welsh mythology). You can't analyze the appeal of Guinevere and Lancelot without analyzing the appeal of King Arthur, and that is a task for a far greater mind than mine. Camelot is the idealized land we all hold in our heads, a place and time where all demons where external, where there was freedom and happiness, where people believed in ideals like chivalry and love and justice, where, despite the tragedies, the violence, and the betrayls, everything was beautiful. Guinevere and Lancelot are a culmination of that time and that ideal. Their love was a love to end an age - and to immortalize it. For all the swords in stones and ladies in lakes and knights in woods, their's is the one story that is real - and yet not real. They stand at the point where dreams meet reality, all too human passion mixed with unearthly virtue. They are the bridge through which we can see to a better time, even if that time never was.
8. Beatrice and Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare). I may be injecting some of my personal prejudices into this list. This is my very favorite Shakespearean couple. They are the only ones that seem quite real. Romeo and Juliet's passion lives and dies over the course of a few days. Most of his other romances are as shortlived, or as abrupt. The rest tend to end in tragedy. But with Beatrice and Benedick, we have hints of former love, crushed either by pride or indifference, but whose seeds still remain, and are brought to blossom over the course of the play. And their wit is marvelous. They spend the first half tearing each other to pieces,and the second half mooning over each other in secret, too proud to admit their love even after realizing it. Eventually, they give in, to the satisfaction of all.
That's all I can think of right now. If I think of anything else, I'll add it later.Who were some of the best couples of all time?
Aragorn and Arwen
Antony and Cleopatra
Tristan and Isolde
Romeo and Juliet
Real life couples:
Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy
Victoria and Albert
Hume and Jessica were exceptional. When Ed Bradley from 60 Minutes interviewed them, his jaw nearly fell off his face when Hume told them they'd decided to get a divorce after 60 years of marriage. They were pulling his leg.
Romeo and Juliet ! and soon to be, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen!
Teresa and Tomas - Unbearable Lightness of Being
Dagny and Hank - Atlas Shrugged
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy - Pride and Prejudice
Romeo and Juliet (unarguable)
Catherine and Heathcliff - Wuthering Heights
Lancelot and Guinevere - Arthurian Legends
Ophelia and Hamlet - Hamlet
Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara - Gone With the Wind
And of course, unarguably and undeniably...
EDWARD CULLEN AND ISABELLA SWAN
PS Introduce me to Edward, woudja Bella? ;)
i would so say Bella and Edward from the twilight series they were like an impossible couple but still made it
Antony %26amp; Cleopatra
They tore an empire apart.
And two thousand years latter people still talk about it.
Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater.
Their love was unchallengable; it was so simple, so sweet, and it lasted forever. Titanic has become a classic movie and the love Jack and Rose possessed was so real and tangible, so like other peoples' love in the real world. It made me personally ache for a love so powerful as they found in as little as five days.
Elizabeth and Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice!
Both in film and on paper. I like that it wasn't too schmatlzy like some writers and directors make their characters these days.
I also think the idea of Snape and Lily from Harry Potter was cute, although intangible.
Henry Miller and Anais Nin
Anne and Captain Wentworth from Persuasion. They were young, in love, and engaged until Anne's mother figure persuaded her he was not good enough. About eight years later their love still thrives after each are persuaded their love is gone. You really should read the book.
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