Artists have explored the theme of jealousy in photographs, paintings, movies, songs, plays, poems, and books. Theologians have offered religious views of jealousy based on the scriptures of their respective faiths.
While this kind of usage blurs the boundaries between categories that are intellectually valuable and psychologically justifiable, such confusion is understandable in that historical explorations of the term indicate that these boundaries have long posed problems. Margot Grzywacz's fascinating etymological survey of the word in Romance and Germanic languages asserts, indeed, that the concept was one of those that proved to be the most difficult to express in language and was therefore among the last to find an unambiguous term. Classical Latin used invidia , without strictly differentiating between envy and jealousy. It was not until the postclassical era that Latin borrowed the late and poetic Greek word zelotypia and the associated adjective zelosus . It is from this adjective that are derived French jaloux , Provencal gelos , Italian geloso , and Spanish celoso . (Lloyd, 1995, page 4) Lloyd, R. (1995). Closer & Closer Apart: Jealousy in Literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Parrot, W.G. & Smith, R.H. (1993). Distinguishing the experiences of envy and jealousy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 906-920.
People often use the word jealousy as a broad label that applies to both experiences of jealousy and experiences of envy.
Attitudes toward jealousy can also change within a culture over time. For example, attitudes toward jealousy changed substantially during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. People in the United States adopted much more negative views about jealousy.
Because jealous lovers tell multiple stories about those who arouse their jealousy, and because the emotion is so corrosive, jealousy is a common theme in literature, art, theatre, and film.
Source: Wikipedia > Jealousy
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