Love …a provocative word, one which encapsulates so many emotions from extreme, uplifting joy, to utter, fallen wretchedness. A word all too often misused and abused by some, while regrettably left unspoken by others with intentions perhaps more genuine. Having always been fond of the written word, I have encountered in my readings innumerable methods and manners of manifesting that most explosive and tender emotion. From the annals of antiquity to modern expression, the wrenching sensation of love has grasped the pens of some of humanity's preeminent minds, whether philosopher, poet, or someone expressing the sentiments of the former via the art of the latter. I have, in these following pages, focused my energies almost entirely upon the writings of poets for more than the obvious reason that I too have compiled a collection of poetry wrought of love. I venture forth in this preface to explore how one immersed in the sensations of love is moved by the passionate desire to express those emotions in the form of poetry. I have focused on poetic excerpts taken from some of history's most enduring and celebrated literary works in order to illustrate the notion that poetry, above all other art forms, expresses and embraces the purest emotional sensations experienced with love. Furthermore, in its ability to express the common thread of human love across all bridges of time to the earliest accounts of recorded history, poetry consequently links the modern man to his forefathers in a manner which is intrinsically the most passionate and personal form of expression.

If we maintain that poetry stands as the ideal literary medium for the expression of love, then philosophy can be considered the ideal medium for the analysis of love, as is evident in Plato's illuminating dialogue, Symposium.

(cont.)