Schmaltz just doesn’t sit well with traditional English sensibilities. We spend hundreds of millions of pounds on Valentine’s Day each year whilst acknowledging that it’s a load of commercial tosh.
There’s little point in wrapping love in a lace doily when at heart it’s a frill-free experience. Lovely as Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How do I love thee? is, we’re more honest with ourselves if we savour particularly those great love poems which possess an anti-romantic streak. Direct, matter-of-fact verses will often chime better with our general disposition.
That’s true today perhaps more than ever. We’re no longer genteel enough to take affront to the threat of worms trying a Coy Mistress’ virginity, or to John Donne’s sexual metaphor in The Flea. Who knows, perhaps the current vogue for vampires even further intensifies their erotic appeal.
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