Love Poetry Across Cultures: Sonnets, Ghazals and Troubadours
A tour of love poetry traditions from ancient Greece to medieval Europe, Persia, India and Japan, with the forms that shaped them.
Every culture has love poetry, and each has its own forms. Exploring them shows how many ways there are to say the same thing.
Ancient voices
- Sappho, a Greek poet from around 600 BC, wrote short, intense lyrics about desire and longing. Only fragments of her work survive.
- The Song of Songs, in the Hebrew Bible, is a collection of love poems full of vivid imagery.
Medieval troubadours
In southern France, from the eleventh century, poets called troubadours composed songs in the Occitan language about longing and admiration, often for a noble lady. Their tradition of "courtly love" shaped later European romance.
The sonnet
The sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that developed in Italy and was made famous by Petrarch in the fourteenth century. It later spread to England, where Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, many about love. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Pablo Neruda also wrote memorable sonnets.
The ghazal
The ghazal is a poetic form from Arabic, Persian and later Urdu traditions. It is made of couplets that stand alone but share a rhyme and a refrain. Its themes are often love and longing. Poets such as Hafez in Persian and Ghalib in Urdu are celebrated for their ghazals.
The waka and tanka
In Japan, the waka, known today as the tanka, is a short poem in five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Love was a favourite theme in early Japanese poetry. The form is brief and suggests more than it says.
Common themes
Across these traditions, the same feelings recur:
| Theme | Example |
|---|---|
| Longing | missing someone far away |
| Admiration | describing the loved one |
| Joy | delight in being together |
| Loss | separation or unanswered love |
| Devotion | loyalty over time |
Trying them yourself
You can borrow the forms:
- A tanka: five lines, 5-7-5-7-7, about a moment you shared.
- A couplet in the style of a ghazal: two lines that stand alone.
- A short sonnet-style poem: fourteen lines on one feeling.
Reading and sharing
Reading a few translated poems from different traditions is a lovely way to find words you like. A short quote can start a message, as in the library of love quotes and messages in the True Love Calculator app, a lighthearted app made for fun.
Tips
- Read across cultures.
- Try a simple form.
- Borrow a line and add your own.
True Love Calculator
A fun love percentage calculator, plus love quotes to send
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