/lit/ - Literature

>>5343894

women = fixate on what a man has and who he is in relation to society
men = fixate on a woman's form and how she is desired in relation to other men

Sappho probably invented the love poem

>>5343903
Explain why I have been in love with my sporadically employed partner for 14 years.
-femanon

emily dickinson

>>5343922

deep down you know you're not much of a catch either

>>5343922

go to >>>/adv/ for that stuff

>>5343926

and that you would include his history of employment proves that you also use it as a means of judging worth

you could be wearing a potato sack and have zero dollars to you name, if you're hot enough we'll be all in

>>5343926
>>5343930
Not looking for advice, just opposing the idea that women are only in it for money and prestige.

>>5343894
Looks like someone hasn't read Sappho. You should get on that. Or stop posting.

>>5343905
They're not starting with the Greeks.
Why does /lit/ skip them so often?

>>5343933

>just opposing the idea that women are only in it for money and prestige

not only, but mostly

go and ask random women if they'd still be fucking around with a guy who has a 14 year track record fail like that and you'll find out quick that societal status is the main thing that they care about past a certain age

>>5343922
>Explain why I have been in love with my sporadically employed partner for 14 years.

When >>5343903 writes
>in relation to society
it is not restricted to employment relations. There's also cultural relations, religious relations, political relations etc. In short, there's many ways to be influential. 'Society' doesn't necessarily mean at a national/global level. Society is also your circle of friends and friends of friends.

Can you think of any other relations that your partner might have to society besides employment?

>>5343951

>it is not restricted to employment relations. There's also cultural relations, religious relations, political relations etc. In short, there's many ways to be influential.

also an important consideration

i'm not saying that women are somehow lesser for this. we both objectify just as much on either side of the fence.

>>5343956
>i'm not saying that women are somehow lesser for this
Agree with this. Let me be clear: In >>5343951, I am no way suggestion that women are in it only for money and prestige. I wrote my post before reading:
>>5343933
>Not looking for advice, just opposing the idea that women are only in it for money and prestige.

I have heard female appreciate the beauty of complete strangers without knowing anything about their relation to society. It's obvious to me that relation to society is only part of the attraction.

Anne Sexton has a whole book of "love" poems. Granted, a lot of the material is about how the man makes her feel and not about the actual guy. But a lot of it is pretty good.

And if we're talking about overly essentialist descriptions of how men and women think of each other, a friend once told me this: A man can love any woman he thinks is beautiful. Women love how a man makes them feel, but not the man.

>Millay
>Dickinson
>Plath
>MOTHERFUCKING BROWNING

Seriously, faggot?

>>5343894
Hi who is Sapphos

>>5343970

We could include the male list but we'd reach post cap on the thread.

Women write love poems for no one in particular, just for a person by whom they wish to be loved.
Men write love poems for specific women.

>>5343894
Bitch please

>>5343972

I plucked four off the top of my head. Should I keep going? It would be beside the point.

Here's the OP:

>How come women are incapable of writing love poems? Except ironically or in jest.

And I provided four counter-examples.

There are more published male poets than female poets. That has nothing to do with the content of the female poets' work.

>>5343905
>>5343943
>hurr sapho

where did she write a shakespearen style love sonnet about a man's beard or muscles?

Also 1 woman is hardly anything to mention...list at least 10, in each major period. Then you might have a case

>>5343981

Most of Shakespeare's sonnets are about a man. The rest are about one women who had an affair with that one man, or about Time.

>>5343981
She invented the form. That's significant.

Maybe if you read A Room of Her Own, you'd understand the issue.

>>5343970

those are women poets. of course women poets exist. OP is asking for something more specific.

Where in their poems did they praise and adulate a man? Men poets do it all the time

>>5343985

where has a woman ever expressed love towards a man in a poem and praised his features, virtues, beauty, etc?

>>5343990
Emily Dickenson.

There just weren't a whole lot of female poets in the period when that was popular, it's a bit out of style now. "Your face is like the heavens, your eyes like stars!" It's a bit cloche now. So you might as well ask why there weren't many women poets back when it was in vogue.

>>5343986

>Men poets do it all the time

Where? Be specific!

Browning:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

It's cheese ball as hell, but there it is.

>>5343990

Have you never read your sister's diary?

>>5343976

/thread

>>5343981
>where did she write a shakespearen style love sonnet about a man's beard or muscles?
We'll never know since so much of her work was left to crumble or was intentionally destroyed

>Also 1 woman is hardly anything to mention..
>One pre-Christian era woman
>Wonders why there aren't any more women writing about beards and muscles afterwards

Picture for amusement.

>>5343894
>If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun

>>5344036

BURN.

>>5344042
Even shakespeare negged bitches

>>5344061
>negged

>>5343894
Sappho

>>5344063
Welcome to rapenglish, you are a master practitioner.

>>5343894
no love there apparently.

>>5343894
serious answer:
traditional "love poems" are outdated as shit
most "love poems" were written at a time when women weren't really able to fall in love and/or publish much poetry

>>5343976

that's deep.
women want to receive love, men want to give love.

>>5344126

>>5344126

>women want to receive love, men want to give love.

you are pasting my mind with wisdom moneyshots right now holy fuck

>>5343894
try starting with the greeks, you fucking mong

>>5343990
>he is more than a hero

>>5343894
Because >tfw no gf is an exclusively male emotion, and love poetry is just longform "tfw no gf".

(Note that nobody ever writes love poetry once they get the girl, it's always part of a courtship ritual.)

>>5343894
>love poetry
>has not read a poem
>has not read any poem

Nice try / r9k/

>>5344184
He is the anon we need, not the one we deserve.

>>5343976
No. Source: any love-poem writing no-gf feeling male teenager. You also forgot to consider that the woman in a lot of the Western tradition of love poems is often fictional or merely a literary figure. The manic pixie dream girl is only the latest example of that thread.

And of course you have to consider that in many cases the specific woman you write poems for is taken as the embodiment of a feminine ideal that has little to do with the actual woman.

I agree that there are differences between male and female love (in the West at leas), but I don't they are those listed in your post and above. Ideals, images and an abstract idea of love are an important component of love for any reader, male or female.

>>5343894
It's like you've never opened the Norton.

>>5344371
>Because >tfw no gf is an exclusively male emotion, and love poetry is just longform "tfw no gf".

A love poem by Laurie Penny

"You are the pearl of my existence, my reason to exist. I would wash your feet every day in the river Ganges. You are my holy cow. You are my oxygen. You are the fluttering in my chest as I whisper three words – I. Love. You. Love is the most powerful feeling I have ever experienced. My love for you could stop bullets, it could stop tanks. It could stop a war between Pakistan and India, prevent a 9mm round from penetrating the heart of a sacred cow. You are my sacred cow. And I will protect you. My love will engulf us like a Kashmir blanket and warm our bones against the cold. I would snuggle with you in Northern Siberia, using my love to keep us warm. I would make love to you on a Swiss mountaintop, next to a cow. You are my sacred cow, and my heart is a beating cowbell. I love you so much it tingles. Love-tingles. I blow smoke rings and flick the top with my finger to make a heart. This heart is for you, a smokey heart born in fire. My heart burns for you. Our souls fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Will you be my sacred cow?"

>>5344420
>A love poem by Laurie Penny

OP said no ironic or poems in jest, she's a feminist, nothing she says is genuine, shes making fun of men writing love poems.

>>5344423
patriarchy pls.

>>5344418
I lol'd

Isn't Carol Ann Duffy poet laureate?

>>5343894
Didn't Elizabeth Barrett Browning write like 50 sonnets about her husband.
I've always thought there were more female poets than authors, at least classically.