Paul’s Reviews > The Amorous Heart: An Unconventional History of Love > Status Update

“In 1977 the heart icon became a verb. The “I love NY” logo was created to boost morale for a city that was in severe crisis. Trash piled up on the streets, the crime rate spiked, and New York City was near bankruptcy. Hired by the city to design an image that would increase tourism, Milton Glaser created the famous logo that has since become both a cliché and a meme.” (219)

“These rings produced in the fishing village of Claddagh near Galway were inscribed with a heart symbolizing love that was placed between two open hands symbolizing friendship and surmounted by a crown symbolizing loyalty... Some of the most elegant items are unisex wedding bands that combine the Claddagh heart with Celtic eternity knots as a joint expression of enduring love and Irish identity.” (184)

“Yet most of all, as in the Middle Ages when the heart icon was born, it continues to represent the ineffable allure of romance and our shared belief, since around 1800, that love should be the primary ingredient in the choice of a spouse.” (178)

“Americans have had a love affair with the heart for a very long time. From colonial times to the present, the heart has adorned a plethora of everyday items suitable for a democratic society. No longer reserved for the elite, the heart belongs to everyone. We call upon it to express our deepest emotions, from love to loss. When misfortune strikes, it symbolizes our broken hearts and our sympathy for others.” (178)

“In 1741 the Foundling Hospital was established in London for the city’s sizeable number of abandoned children. Along with their babies, mothers often left tokens of love, such as a piece of jewelry or a poem, which could be used in identifying the child of the mother ever came back to claim the boy or girl. Unfortunately, most of the mothers never saw their children again.” (159)

“Locke contributed considerably to the new cartography of the self in Western thought. Along with other seventeenth-century thinkers, Locke gave the heart a sound beating. Henceforth, Enlightenment philosophers as well as physicians would conceptualize the heart materialistically and abandon its ancient metaphoric meanings.” (158)

“”The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.” Without denying the value of reason, Pascal pointed to a different kind of knowledge perceived instinctively by the heart and inaccessible to rational thought. Pascal’s heart remained open to the mystery of love in both its human and divine forms.” (157)

“Heart-shaped maps of the world, called cordiform by cartographers, appeared in Europe early in the sixteenth century.” (115)
“Luther’s Rose/Heart”: “Luther argued that the black cross symbolizing Christ’s death, the red heart symbolizing faith, and the white rose symbolizing belief in the Resurrection all reinforced each other.” (126)

“In all these cases the heart was understood as a partial substitute for the person whose body was buried elsewhere. But in the fifteenth century the heart sometimes superseded its status as a partial representative. It wanted to be more independent. It wanted to be the whole person. And so in literature the heart became an individual in its own right.” (103)

“In all these cases the heart was understood as a partial substitute for the person whose body was buried elsewhere. But in the fifteenth century the heart sometimes superseded its status as a partial representative. It wanted to be more independent. It wanted to be the whole person. And so in literature the heart became an individual in its own right.” (103)