Love at first sight

Love at first sight is an emotional condition whereby a person feels romantic attraction for a stranger on the first encounter with the stranger. The term may be used to refer to a mere sexual attraction or crush, but it usually refers to actually falling in love with someone literally the very first time one sees him or her, along with the deep desire to have intimate relationship with that person. The stranger may or may not be aware that the other person has any such notion, and may not even be aware of the other person's presence (such as in a crowded place). Sometimes two people experience this phenomenon towards each other at the same time, usually when their eyes meet. See also love.


Greco-Roman conception
Classical authors (as exemplified by Ovid in his The Art of Love, Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon, or Dido's passion for Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid) explained the phenomenon of "love at first sight" through an elaborate metaphoric (and sometimes mythological) psychological schema: the image of the beautiful loved object (and in particular the sight of his or her eyes) was said to be like arrows; if these arrows were to arrive at the lover's eyes, they would then travel to and 'pierce' and 'wound' his or her heart and overwhelm him/her with desire and longing (love sickness). In the event that the loved object was cruel or uninterested, this desire would drive the lover into a state of depression, causing lamentation and illness. Occasionally, the loved objects – because of their sublime beauty – are depicted as unwitting ensnares of lovers (their beauty is a "divine curse" that inspires men to kidnap them or try to rape them).[1]
The source of "arrows" were sometimes translated through the mythological image of Cupid. The gaze of a beautiful woman is sometimes compared to the sight of a basilisk. Stories in which unwitting men catch sight of the naked body of Diana (goddess) the huntress (and sometimes Venus (mythology)) lead to similar ravages (as in the tale of Actaeon).
The image of the "arrow's wound" is sometimes used to create oxymorons and rhetorical antithesis. Such is, for example, the case of the classically inspired images of If Love's a Sweet Passion from Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen (act 3):


Love at first sight in literature
The classical schema of the lover's eyes, the arrows and the ravages of "love at first sight" were frequently borrowed in western Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque literature and pictoral imagery [2]:
The first sight of the beautiful princess Angelica (character) in Ariosto's Orlando furioso and the witch Armida in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered enchant the knights that perceive them; Giovanni Boccaccio's Elegy of Lady Fiammetta describes the ravages of love at first sight on a woman.
Love at first sight is a recurring popular theme in fiction. Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare is probably the best-known example.
In the French novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the characters Marius Pontmercy and Cosette fall in love after glancing into each others' eyes.

Eroticism is an aesthetic focus on sexual desire, especially the feelings of anticipation of sexual activity. It is not only the state of arousal and anticipation, but also the attempt through whatever means of representation to incite those feelings.
The word "eroticism" is derived from the name of the Greek god of love, Eros. It is conceived as sensual love or the human sex drive (libido). Philosophers and theologians discern three kinds of love: eros, philia, and agape. Of the three, eros is considered the most egocentric, focusing on care for the self.
Ancient Greek philosophy’s overturning of mythology defines in many ways our understanding of the heightened aesthetic sense in eroticism and the question of sexuality. Eros was after all the primordial god of unhinged sexual desire in addition to heteroeroticism, which is the yearning of sexual desire from the opposite sex. In the Platonic ordered system of ideal forms, Eros corresponds to the subject's yearning for ideal beauty and finality. It is the harmonious unification not only between bodies, but between knowledge and pleasure. Eros takes an almost transcendent manifestation when the subject seeks to go beyond itself and form a communion with the objectival other. The French philosopher Georges Bataille believed eroticism was a movement towards the limits of our own subjectivity and humanity, a transgression that dissolves the rational world but is always transitory.
Yet an objection to eros and erotic representation is that it fosters a subject/object relationship in which the object of desire is mere projection of the needs of desiring subject. Love as eros is considered more base than philia (friendship) or agape (self-sacrificing love). But erotic engagement paradoxically individuates and de-individuates the desirer.
Some believe defining eroticism may be difficult since perceptions of what is erotic fluctuate. For example, a voluptuous nude painting by Peter Paul Rubens could have been considered erotic or pornographic when it was created for a private patron in the 17th century. Similarly in the United Kingdom and United States, D. H. Lawrence's sexually explicit novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was considered obscene and unfit for publication and circulation in many nations thirty years after it was completed in 1928, but may now be part of standard literary school texts in some areas. In a different context, a sculpture of a phallus in Africa may be considered a traditional symbol of potency though not overtly erotic.
The holiday of Eros Day celebrates the spirit of Eros and eroticism on or around January 22 every year.