Since man (and woman) began to write, love has been the subject of poems, plays, novels, short stories and essays as well as filling the pages of countless diaries and letters. This Valentine's Day why not give some words of love to your sweetheart?
Poetry is always a good place to start; anthologies of Shakespeare's love sonnets, and the love poetry of WB Yeats or Elizabeth Barrett Browning are available in all good book shops. Gill and Macmillan have just brought out Remembered Kisses – An Illustrated Anthology of Irish Love Poetry, which features poems by WB Yeats, Derek Mahon, Katherine Tynan, Paul Durcan, Seamus Heaney and Rita Ann Higgins. Each poem is accompanied by work from artists including Sir William Orpen, Walter Osborne, Sir John Lavery, Mildred Ann Butler, Roderic O'Connor and Jack B Yeats. The paintings are intended to compliment, not illustrate, the poems and are given as much prominence in this well designed soft back book. Visitors to the National Gallery will recognise a few including 'Economic Pressure' by Sean Keating, which depicts a couple standing embracing behind a rocky outcrop while a small boat and two men stand by to take one of them abroad. There are lots of portraits, but there are also some more abstract works; Tim Goulding's Voyage accompanies WB Yeats' poem He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven: "I have spread my dreams under your feat / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
If poetry isn't your thing, then you should look towards classic novels: Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte's tale of passion on the moors between Heathcliff and Cathy - her sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre, or any work from the entire canon of Jane Austen novels. For a more exotic read try Isabel Allende's Eva Luna, Laura Esquival's Like Water for Chocolate or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera - love in a magical realist style. Back home, Nuala O'Faolain has recently published her first novel, My Dream of You. It tells the story of a woman on the verge of 50 whose investigation into a true tale of passion between a servant and the wife of an Irish landlord in 1850's Ireland makes her confront her own ability to love and be loved.
For a racier class of classic fiction, the novels of DH Lawrence or Anais Nin's short stories can be found in all large bookshops. Lawrence's Women in Love was described as 'an analytical study of sexual depravity' when it was first published in 1920 (US) and 1921 (UK). Telling the story of two sisters and their love affairs with two men, it was written in 1916 as a sequel to The Rainbow, but publication was delayed because The Rainbow had to be withdrawn after copies were seized by police in the UK. Lady Chatterley's Lover won more attention after its banning and subsequent obscenity trial at the Old Bailey, but Lawrence regarded Women in Love as his best book. The erotic short stories of Anais Nin, blending pure fantasy with eroticism, are available in different formats from Penguin.
For a more philosophical approach look to Erich Fromm's The Art of Love, a short book containing a long essay on the theory and practice of love. But don't expect to be bowled over with swooning rhetoric on passion, fate and destiny. He writes, "'Attractive' usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market. What specifically makes a person attractive depends on the fashion of the time... Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values." Fromm puts forward the theory that love is an art that must be learnt. Taking the fact that love often fails as its starting point – "There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love." – his book proceeds to teach the reader how to succeed at love. First published in 1957, Fromm's theories endure pretty well under 21st century scrutiny, but be warned he may shatter your illusions completely.
Enforced separation is always guaranteed to bring out love on paper, but how about a relationship that began apart and ended apart, unconsummated? Love Letters, from Kahlil Gibran (author of 'The Prophet') to May Ziadah (writer and campaigner for women's rights), documents such a relationship. Ziadah began writing to Gibran having read his work as part of her job as a literary reviewer for newspapers. Both were Lebanese, but by the time their correspondence began, he had settled in New York and she was in Cairo. Despite the fact that the two never met, from 1912 to 1931 their relationship developed into a strong passion through letters alone, and was brought only to an end by Gibran's death. Their letters allowed them to write more than they might ever have said. Ziadah wrote in 1924: "I know that you are my beloved and that I revere love. I say this in the full knowledge that the least love is great. Poverty and hardship accompanied by love are far better than wealth without it...Thank God I am writing all this down and not speaking it, because if you were her in the flesh now I would shrink back and keep away from you a long while, and I would not allow you to see me again until you had forgotten my words."
Gibran wrote to Ziadah with honesty, as if writing to himself. He often included sketches and drawings of his own, invitation cards and other things that showed he wanted to share the details of his everyday life with her, illustrations of which are included in the publication. In 1925 he described himself reading one of her letters on his birthday, "After the celebrations we sat together, you and I, apart from the others and talked at length, saying to each other what cannot be said except without hope. Then we gazed up at our distant star and were silent. After that we resumed our talk until the dawn of day and your hand was placed on my throbbing heart until the morning broke." Unfortunately Love Letters does not include Ziadah's responses to Gibran, few have ever been published due to the wishes of her family.
There is nothing more romantic than words of love specifically selected and given, so if you're looking for a more personal touch (or you just find yourself strapped for cash), why not buy a nice notebook or writing paper and visit your local library to copy down your favourite extracts as a Valentine's Day present. You may even be inspired to string together a few words of love of your own.
Cristín Leach
Remembered Kisses – An illustrated anthology of Irish love poetry, Gill and Macmillan, £10.25My Dream of You, Nuala O'Faolain, Michael Joseph, £12.99Love Letters, Gibran, translated and edited by Suheil Bushrui and Salma Haffar Al- Kuzbari, Oneworld, £9.99 stg.
