Welcome to Unwritten's February blog event! Of course, this is the month of love, so I wanted to celebrate that theme as I've done in year's past. But this year, I've decided to add a scientific spin to it. All month long, talented authors from several genres will write about some aspect of love from their books as it relates to science. It could be social, psychological, biological, or anything in between. Our blog event is sponsored by "HMC by Kate", a fabulous independent jewelry crafter. Kate's giving away one of her very beautiful necklaces that I think fits our theme perfectly. She's also offering everyone who stops in a 10% discount on any item from her Etsy store. Be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of this post and check out her lovely offerings! Without further ado, please welcome our guest author:
From
Shakespeare To Hallmark: Just Add Chocolate
By Alayna-Renee Vilmont
“If making love is
an art
And improper
courtship a crime,
The way to a true
lover’s heart
Is a mixture of
chocolate and rhyme.”
--- Alayna’s
Deservedly Unpublished Valentine Collection
If the fastest way to lift a woman’s skirt was to lift
her spirits, preferably while sharing a glass or two of them, it was the
Elizabethans who took romantic poetry and letters to another level and started
a trend that would last roughly 350 years and is still kept alive by greeting
card companies. In an era defined by inequality, many peasants still didn’t
know how to write well, much less compose verse. Education was often considered
wasted on women, yet a background in art, music, literature, and dancing were
talents that made upper-class women more attractive and marriageable.
Therefore, hastily scribbled verses pining over a lover were not uncommon, and
were one of the only discrete and acceptable ways to inform a potential suitor
of romantic interest in a society where arranged marriages were law of the land
and fidelity a seldom-kept promise in people of any station
Of course, for a young man who could not rely on his
looks or station to have women competing to fall into his bed, romantic verse
was a tool in the art of seduction that did not discriminate. The idea of
becoming a talented man’s muse or a less talented man’s object of flattery was
often one not to be sneezed at, and remained that way for centuries---unless
you happened to be a pragmatic heroine in a Jane Austen novel.
While many of the poems in fashion throughout Europe
during the Elizabethan and Victorian eras were bawdy limericks, or thinly
veiled pick-up lines, others were true works of art. More so than any other
author, it is the love poems penned by William Shakespeare that live on.
Shakespeare’s cranky but insightful Jacques describes the phase of being a
lover as “with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow”. While Jacques
mocks the convention of bad rhyme as courtship, in 2015, we are still comparing
others to a summer day. Words are still sweeter when whispered in secret, in
really not-so-secret from a balcony, or in the case of Roxanne and Cyrano, recited
by a best friend who is single for a reason.
Did Romeo offer Juliet chocolates in a heart-shaped box
while offering immortal words of love? Probably not, but chances are good that
if you’ve forgotten a card with a short rhyming verse as a token of your
affection, you won’t be getting any luckier than that immortal pair.
**********************************************************
* Facebook: www.facebook.com/princessalayna
* Twitter: www.twitter.com/princessalayna
* Blog: www.jadedelegance.net
* Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6862252.Alayna_Renee_Vilmont
* Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ophelias-Wayward-Muse-Alayna-Renee-Vilmont/dp/1478218886/ENTER TO WIN!
This beautiful handmade necklace from HMC by KATE
A new way to look at the rows of cards at your local drug store, as at connection to our shared past including the likes of Shakespeare
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