B007Q6XJAO EBOK (37 page)

175 “the single most effective tactic”: Meston and Buss,
Why Women Have Sex
, 21.

175 If a woman laughs: See study of speed dating in Robert R. Provine,
Laughter: A Scientific Investigation
(New York: Penguin, 2000), 34; and Meston and Buss,
Why Women Have Sex
, 21.

175 “Make her laugh”: Capellanus,
Art of Courtly Love
, 37; and Baldesar Castiglione,
The Book of the Courtier
, trans. Charles S. Singleton (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1959), 167.

175 Stanford University study of humor: Eleanor Hayes, “The Science of Humour: Allan Reiss,” Science in School, December 6, 2010, www.scienceinschool.org/2010/issue17/allenreiss.

175 witty conversationalist exhibits: See “Fast Forces of Attraction,”
Psychology Today
, December 28, 2007.

175 “What is more seductive”: Baudrillard,
Seduction
, 102.

175 “linguistic zaniness”: This is Steven Pinker’s catchall phrase for all forms used by “entertainer language mavens.” Pinker,
The Language Instinct
(New York: HarperPerennial/HarperCollins, 1994), 386.

176 Comedy, by nature: Susanne K. Langer,
Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art
(New York: Scribner’s, 1953), 84, 85.

176 “tricked the mind”: Brown,
Hermes the Thief
, 14.

176 They’re members of: See Stephen Nachmanovitch,
Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
(New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1990), 46–47.

176 “limp with laughter”: Derek Walcott,
The Joker of Seville and O Babylon: Two Plays
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1928), 30.

176 “merriment”: George Eliot,
Middlemarch
, ed. Bert G. Hornback (1873; New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 131.

176 “hero should make”: Leslie Wainger,
Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies
(New York: Wiley, 2004), 66.

177 “one of nature’s”: Mary Jo Putney,
The Rake
(New York: Topaz/Penguin Group, 1998), 135.

177 “how intimate”: Ibid.

177 He ribs her: Susan Elizabeth Phillips,
Fancy Pants
(New York: Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, 1989), 185, 186.

177 “It is because the slave”: Giacomo Casanova,
History of My Life
, trans. Willard R. Trask (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), vol. 1, chap. 2, p. 62.

177 Seated alone once: Ibid., 100.

178 “crazy for him”: Quoted in Donald Sturrock,
Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 182, 230.

178 “like a parish magazine”: Roald Dahl, “The Visitor,” in
The Best of Roald Dahl
, intro. James Cameron (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 287.

178 “more wittily”: Ibid., 289.

179 “chucklefucker”: Mandy Stadtmiller, “New York Comedians Score with Ha-Ha Hottie Groupies,”
New York Post
, January 12, 2010.

179 “My weight”: Quoted in Fiona MacCrae, “Who Gets the Girl? Funny Men Have the Last Laugh . . . ,”
Mail Online
, April 2, 2009, www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1166610/who-gets-girl-funny-men-laugh-.html.

179 “Finding someone funny”: Tad Safran and Molly Watson, “Tad & Molly: Do Women Prefer Rich or Funny Men?”
Times
, July 17, 2008.

180 female preference: Ewen Callaway, “Nerds Rejoice: Braininess Boosts Likelihood of Sex,” ABC News, October 6, 2008, abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=595197&page=1#T5_vRYvgE.

180 “always a turn-on”: Ceri Marsh and Kim Izzo, “A Fine Romance,”
Globe and Mail
, February 9, 2002.

180 “ornamental brain” theory: Miller,
Mating Mind
, 386.

180 “All that information”: Francine Prose,
Blue Angel
(New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 22.

180 “intellectual brilliance”: Guy Sircello, “Beauty and Sex,” in Alan Soble, ed.,
The Philosophy of Sex
(Savage, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1991), 132.

180 “discourse[s] of desire”: Lawrence D. Kritzman, “Roland Barthes: The Discourse of Desire and the Question of Gender,”
MLN: Modern Language Notes
103, no. 4 (French issue, September 1988), 848–864.

180 Ovid believed: Ovid,
Art of Love
, 133.

181 In one exemplum:
Complete K
ā
ma S
ū
tra
, 200.

181 “destitute of mental vigor”: Balzac,
Physiology of Marriage
, 104.

181 “the gods in Olympus”: George du Maurier,
Trilby
(1894; New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 58.

181 “to insert his penis”: Jonathan Franzen, “Breakup Stories,”
New Yorker
, November 8, 2004.

181 “preeminent philosopher”: “Peter Abelard,”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
, November 9, 2010, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abelard/.

182 “place in [his bed]”: Quoted in James Burge,
Heloise and Abelard
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 30.

182 “I feared,” he: Quoted in ibid., 90.

182 “remained absolutely”: M. T. Clanchy,
Abelard: A Medieval Life
(Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1997), 5.

182 “greatest talent”: Flem,
Casanova
, 84.

182 “most entertaining man”: Derek Parker,
Casanova
(Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton, 2002), 36.

182 “Without words”: Casanova,
History of My Life
, vol. 6, chap. 5, p. 106.

182 “beautiful faculty of talk”: Henry James, “Ivan Turgenev,” 1903, www.eldritch.press.org/list/hj2.htm (accessed May 15, 2012).

183 At a house party: Ivan Turgenev,
Rudin
, trans. Richard Freeborn (New York: Penguin Books, 1974), 52.

183 “possessed what is almost”: Ibid., 63.

183 Their affair: V. S. Pritchett,
The Gentle Barbarian: The Work and Life of Turgenev
(New York: Ecco Press, 1977), 168.

183 “erotic in its urgency”: William Deresiewicz, “Love on Campus,”
American Scholar
, June 1, 2007.

183 “the quintessential ladies’ man”: Michel Serres,
Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy
, ed. Josué V. Harari and David F. Bell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 3.

183 “smart and ardent”: Louis Menand, “Stand by Your Man,”
New Yorker
, September 26, 2005.

183 “Seduction”: Jean-Paul Sartre,
Being and Nothingness
, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1984), 486.

183 “golden tongue”: Quoted in Arthur M. Wilson,
Diderot
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), 39.

184 “a fresh and limpid river”: Quoted in “Chattering Classes,”
Economist
, December 23, 2006.

184 “loquacious [and] expansive”: Leslie Gilbert Crocker,
The Embattled Philosopher: A Biography of Denis Diderot
(East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1954), 20.

184 “ravishingly beautiful”: R. N. Furbank,
Diderot: A Critical Biography
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 17.

184 “were standing beside her”: Quoted in Wilson,
Diderot
, 449.

184 “fruits of the mind”: Deresiewicz, “Love on Campus.”

184 “in love with him”: Wilson,
Diderot
, 295.

184 “Diderot among the most”: Ibid., 639.

185 “love’s best weapon”: Michel de Montaigne, “On Some Verses of Virgil,” in
The Complete Essays of Montaigne
, trans. Donald M. Frame (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1960), vol. 3, pp. 66, 67.

185 Cyrano de Bergerac: Edmond Rostand,
Cyrano de Bergerac
, trans. Lowell Bair (New York: Signet Classic, 2003,) act I, scene 4, line 39.

185 At last, fatally wounded: Ibid., act 3, scene 7, line 130.

185 “Lavish fine words”: Ovid,
The Amores
, in Peter Green, ed.,
The Erotic Poems
(New York: Penguin Books, 1982), book 2, p. 111.

185 One suggestion: See Jon Stallworthy, “Introduction” in Jon Stallworthy, ed.,
The New Penguin Book of Love Poetry
(New York: Penguin Books, 2003), xxiv; and J. B. Broadbent,
Poetic Love
(London: Chatto and Windus, 1964).

185 “I know it’s poetry”: Quoted in Thomas H. Johnson, ed.,
The Letters of Emily Dickinson
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1958), letter 342 to Colonel T. W. Higginson, August 1870; and www.wisdomportal.com/Poems/DickinsonDefinitionPoetry.html (accessed October 28, 2010).

185 “parched tongue”: Carl Yapp and Andrew Marvell quoted in “Love Poetry’s ‘Fevered Brow’ Test,” BBC News, February 9, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/mid_/8504616.stm.

185 “an exaltation”: Stallworthy, “Introduction,” xxiv.

185 “the universal sources”: Mircea Eliade,
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
(Bollingen Series vol. 76), trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 510; and Joseph Campbell,
The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology
(New York: Arkana/Penguin, 1969), 4.

186 Miller argues: See Miller,
Mating Mind
, 380.

186 One woman in a survey: See Stains and Bechtel,
What Women Want
, 147.

186 professor Richard Wiseman: “What Women Want: Top Ten Romantic Gestures,”
Telegraph
(UK), July 15, 2009.

186 Women agree: See, for example, Barbara De Angelis,
What Women Want Men to Know: The Ultimate Book about Love, Sex, and Relationships for You—And the Man You Love
(New York: Hyperion, 2001), 305–306; Felicity Huffman and Patricia Wolff,
A Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend
(New York: Hyperion, 2007), 90; Lucy Sanna with Kathy Miller,
How to Romance the Woman You Love
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995), 93–109; and “Why Do Women Love Poems?” Yahoo! Answer, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110728093928AAKJ9VW (accessed October 20, 2011).

186 “luscious love note”: Eve Salinger,
Pleasing Your Woman: Complete Idiot’s Guide
(New York: Alpha/Penguin Group, 2005), 35; and online female forum, “Sex Tips for Geeks: How to Be Sexy,” September 25, 2000, catb.org/~esr/writings/sextips/sexy.html.

186 poets report twice as many: This is from a study by Dr. Daniel Nettle, lecturer in psychology at Newcastle University’s School of Biology, reported in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society
, November 29, 2005. See also “Creative Spark Fuels Active Sex Life,”
HealthDay News
, November 30, 2005, sexualhealth.e-healthsource.com/?p=news1&id=529379.

186 Women are more verbal: On language and emotionality, see Larry Cahill, “His Brain, Her Brain,”
Scientific American
, May 2005, 41, 46. That poetry uses both sides of the brain, see Kenn Nesbitt, “Left Brain, Right Brain, and the Power of Poetry,” Kenn Nesbitt’s Poetry4kids.com, October 11, 2011, www.poetry4kids.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=249.

186 “spur a love bond”: See Ilana Simons, “You Look Nasty in That Dress,”
Psychology Today
, March 25, 2009.

186 “bewitchment of magical speech”: Baudrillard,
Seduction
, 75. Observes
Science Daily
: “The effect [of poetry] on the brain is a bit like a magic trick; we know what the trick means but not how it happened.” It “surprises the brain.” “Reading Shakespeare Has Dramatic Effect on Human Brain,”
Science Daily
, December 16, 2006, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061218122613.htm. T. S. Eliot wrote that a poem is like a burglar throwing meat to a dog in the house, the better to enter the unconscious. T. S. Eliot,
The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism: Studies in Relation to Criticism to Poetry in England
(Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1932–33) (London: Faber and Faber, 1939), 151.

186 “skill in composing”: Paul Friedrich,
The Meaning of Aphrodite
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 144.

187 “The first device”: Ibn Hazm (994–1064),
The Ring of the Dove
, trans. A. J. Arberry (London: Luzac Oriental, 1994), 65.

187 “quote a verse”: Ibid., 65.

187 With courtly love: In Shakespeare’s time “skill at rhyming was the indispensable accomplishment of a gallant.” See E. S. Turner,
A History of Courting
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1955), 54, 134.

187 “poet’s talking”: J. M. Synge,
The Playboy of the Western World
, in Ann Saddlemyer, ed.,
The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), act 3, line 137.

187 In the movie: See two other examples in film: Elliott (Michael Caine), who quotes E. E. Cummings’s “somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond” to seduce Lee in
Hannah and Her Sisters
, and Mr. Big, who wins back Carrie with poetry emails in the movie version of
Sex and the City
.

187 “dancing cloud of words”: Marge Piercy,
Small Changes
(New York: Fawcett Crest, 1972), 101.

187 “She had”: Ibid., 463.

187 “music of the soul”: Quoted in Danielle Hollister, “Top 20 Poetry Quotations,” http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-20-Poetry-Quotations&id=5061 (accessed February 17, 2012).

188 Or pen lyrics: Annabella Milbank, Byron’s wife, first gained his attention through her poems. See Fiona MacCarthy,
Byron: Life and Legend
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), 172. And see the mutual poetic courtship of poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning; and the relationship (probably platonic) between Restoration rake and poet John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, and playwright/poet Aphra Behn, who called him the “great, the godlike Rochester.” Quoted in Graham Greene,
Lord Rochester’s Monkey
(New York: Penguin, 1974), 220.

188 Niccolò Martelli: Georgina Masson,
Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975), 113.