The Conversation - Love's many meanings and forms

I’m one of those people who doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. The idea of exchanging cards, a box of heart-shaped chocolates or going out on a romantic date night isn’t my idea of an expression of love.

Don’t get me wrong − I do enjoy seeing others, young and old, celebrate their love. But that’s just the nature of this day – and of love itself: It can have different meanings and forms. Male poets in ninth century India, for example, expressed extreme devotion and longing for the divine in female voices, as religious studies scholar at UC Davis Archana Venkatesan writes. And according to USC Dornsife’s David Albertson, for the Greeks, ‘eros’ – ‘yearning’ or ‘passionate desire’ – was often a matter of life and death, a danger to avoid.

Indeed, a look at love poems from the Renaissance reminds us that love and Valentine’s Day aren’t exclusively about romance, as UMass Boston’s Shannon McHugh explains. Many Renaissance Italian poems were written for friends, parents, children and grandchildren; they could even be dedicated to Jesus and the saints.

So, wherever you are on this special day – praying to the divine matchmaker, the Old Man Under the Moon, in China; or to the Rabbit God in Taiwan for blessing same-sex romance; or simply celebrating single life, here’s wishing you a Happy Valentine’s Day. As poets, writers and philosophers remind us − love’s definition is expansive!

Also this Valentine’s Day:

• The original cupid was no softie
• What words do you use for love?
• Don’t count on chatbots for love and companionship