The Language of Love

Abstract

This chapter rediscovers the ‘script’ shaping romantic language in Georgian England. As the social psychologist Lubomir Lamy argues, love ‘is first and foremost a story’, with individuals following a ‘script for love that describes how a romantic relationship should normally unfold’. The chapter provides a thematic overview of the various religious, physical, and literary tropes shaping the language of love. It sets out the wider framework that guided the language used by lovers in Georgian England, and how they conceived, navigated—and therefore experienced—love itself. The language of love is presented as a learned style crafted within a number of historically specific frameworks, which enabled couples to elucidate their feelings, determine their compatibility, chart the changing status of their relationship, and build a closer emotional bond before matrimony.