Meaning
A romantic entanglement of three - two rivals in pursuit of one person, or one person entangled with two. The geometry is borrowed, but everyone recognizes the shape: jealousy, secrecy, and a crisis arriving on schedule. Narrative-analysis register - it is a critic's and gossip's term, implying the ending is already scheduled. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Drama built the figure. Shakespeare's Juliet is triangulated between Romeo and Paris before the apothecary ever appears; Dumas engineered triangles strong enough for vengeance and war; and the boulevard stage made the eternal triangle its standard domestic plot - Madame, Monsieur, and the lover, as the formula ran, with the jealous mate, the partner between two, and the lover as catalyst. Psychoanalysis traced the same shape to the Oedipal triangle, and Rene Girard analysed the envy that makes the third corner magnetic. The English phrase itself is plainly modern: the Times used it of an opera plot in 1961, and the New York Times in 1997 praised a novelist's love triangle for achieving the emotional depth of Jules et Jim. The consensual version, the triad, and the circular case the definition excludes, all have their own names - the triangle, strictly, is rivalry.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a love triangle with
- eternal triangle
- the third corner
Usage Examples
- The referendum produced a love triangle of party, press, and public, each loving another least.
- Her novel's love triangle resolves when the three of them open a bakery - critics called it escape.
- Two houses, one mistaken letter: the whole love triangle of the village, and the postmistress amused.