The Valentine

Victorian England: the renaissance of courtly love.

I learned today, via a very informal Wiki quest, that Saint Valentine was not one person, but several, and though a February feast was celebrated by Catholics the ages over for this/these men, no one knows much at all about their holy works on earth.

Interesting, then, that we have devoted an entire holiday in their name, with the goal of sharing intimate verses with the objects of our affection. Did these men ever know such love?

So, Chaucer mentioned Valentine's Day, as a time when birds mate, symbolizing coital affection in a piece of literature written to honor the marriage of Richard II, sometime in the 1300s and from this verse, a tradition, or the justification for such, was born.

What I enjoy most about the history of this holiday is its re-birth in Victorian England. Like Christmas, and chivalry, Valentine's Day reawakened in this era, as its people, proper, righteous, sexually unblemished, sought avenues of liberation. Like the mistletoe tradition of Christmas, the Valentine's missive became a means to rebel against propriety and for one spot of time, reveal one's true affection to another, without fear of social repercussion.

So, here I am in post-post-modern America, a land where sexuality is embraced as a facet of modern living, rather than a means of sharing intimacy with one true love, and I wonder, if the Valentine's card, that little red and pink scented token, in an age of free love, could represent for us something more...Whereas in Victorian times, the Valentine represented an unburdening and awakening of love, in our age, could it represent a reversion to simpler times, times when simple acts of affirmation could resuscitate a fading heart...?

My hope for all on this Valentine's Day is for true, uncontroverted love to manifest itself wildly...not through empty pleasures, but through little well versed reminders of affection and its importance in this world, though oft overlooked.