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To Å®ÉúСÊÓƵs nothing is sacred. From this it follows, quite logically,
that no facet of human activity is immune from their investigation. Clearly,
it was only a matter of time before that great human preoccupation, love,
was placed, as it were, under the psychologist’s microscope so more could
be understood about this elusive emotion.

The first psychologists to boldly go into this area of research, where
no other investigators have gone before, were American. And rather sadly
they encountered some opposition. One US Senator firmly claimed that that
the National Science foundation was ‘squandering’ $84 million of taxpayers
money by trying to find out why people fall in love. He said that he was
against it because he didn’t want to know the answer.

The psychologists were not deterred. They leapt to the attack and discovered
that what we ordinary mortals call ‘love’ is not just a single emotion,
but has many facets or aspects (pace Lloyd Webber). Thus we need new terminology;
ostensibly to clarify the situation but also to enable us to discuss love
meaningfully. Admittedly, though, this can be off-putting at first sight.

For example, one American psychologist, Robert Sternberg, thinks that
love is like a triangle – it has three main components: intimacy, passion
and commitment. By variously combining these he neatly sliced love into
non-love, mere liking, infatuated love, empty love, romantic love, companion
love, fatuous love (in which one cynic has placed Romeo and Juliet) and
finally consummate love.

But the prize for inventive terminology must go to another pioneer,
John Lee, who also divided love into three primary ‘love styles’. He calls
them ‘eros’ (romantic love), ‘ludus’ (playful love), and ‘storage’ (slowly
developing affection). By combining two of these you can get ‘mania’ (obsessive
and jealous), ‘agape’ (pronounced agg-err-pee, which is selfless and altruistic),
and lastly ‘pragma’ (which consciously considers a potential beloved’s desirable
features).

The logical step after this classification is, of course, to ‘go quantitative’;
so now there is, would you believe, a ‘Love Attitude Scale’ to help sort
people into Lee’s various pigeonholes. This has lead to mind-boggling findings
such as that male college students are more erotic and ludic than the females,
but less pragmatic, storagic and manic. It has also produced the riveting
fact that couples who stay together are more erotic than couples who break
up, but less ludic.

What has so far been overlooked, however, is the superb opportunity
this clarification offers for the wholesale analysis and rewriting of English
literature, from Beowulf to the Beatles. Everywhere the casual slap-dash
novelist or poet has merely said ‘love’, the situation can now be redefined
and rendered beautifully precise by using the correct technical replacement.

The scope for this is shown by the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations,
which lists around a thousand quotes alluding to love, lovers and loving.
Although you must admit that dear old Shakespeare was setting a trend when
he asked ‘What is love?’, his answer, ‘Tis not hereafter!’, does lack the
beauty and precision now available to us. For example, his celebrated sonnet
should perhaps read ‘Eros is not eros which alters when it alteration finds,’
and the famous opening line from Twelfth Night could read ‘If music be the
food of mania, play on.’ The possibilities ramify further. Even unto Tin
Pan Alley, where, for example, George Gershwin could be rephrased to ‘Pragma
walked right in,’ and dear Bess could declare ‘I storge you, Porgy’. Finally,
one could check out the world of pop music and clarify the Beatles to ‘All
you need is agape’ or ‘Money can’t buy me ludus.’

So, research proceeds fearlessly; expanding jargon to fill the spaces
available and clearly showing that love is not, as many had hoped or feared,
too complicated for the scientific mind to grasp. Lastly, it remains to
be pointed out that even scientists are human, and can themselves fall in
eros, or should it be ludus .. or mania, or ..

Clare Putnam is a retired schoolteacher living in Essex.