Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Why is Sex So Hard to Put Into Words?


This is the question The Telegraph asks.

From the story...

It's every writer's nightmare. You've invested years of blood, sweat and, in my case, HB pencils in the British Library to construct your tale of deep passion and pent-up desire and now – at last – your central characters are edging towards the bedroom. At which point you start to suffer from writer's droop. How are you going to encapsulate the earth-moving wonder, the erotic arousal and tender protectiveness of the longed-for moment?

Imagine this and multiply it by ten when the main character of your novel, The Lady and The Poet, happens to be John Donne, perhaps the greatest erotic love poet in the English language, whose poetry glitters with clever seductiveness, carnal longing and a subversive delight in sex?

Add to the problem the helpful advice from my agent that when Donne and the young woman with whom he falls passionately in love, Ann More, finally make it to the four-poster – "it had better be good!''

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