Sex And Death
It’s not a profound observation that the two major themes that writers explore are sex and death. (Okay, also their variations: love and suffering.) That they are intimately connected is exemplified by the phrase “the little death” to describe orgasm.
In at least one translation of Plato’s Symposium there is a line: “Love is a grave mental illness.” I truncated that for the title of my very first book: Love Is A Grave.
When I was completing a more recent collection of erotic poems, I thought a great title for the book would be one that was explicit about these two ubiquitous themes. Unfortunately I knew that the excellent Canadian poet, Al Purdy, had scooped me for that title, because I had a copy of his fine book: Sex and Death.
It’s interesting and seems appropriate that a book about the philosophy of biology also shares that title.
I finally decided to title my collection The Sad Science of Love.