151. Valentine's Day

Context:

Tom describes Chaucer reading this book in 'The Parliament of Fowls' - 'So the plot of it is that Chaucer is reading a book by Cicero, The Dream of Scipio. And he falls asleep.'

Context:

Tom discusses this poem extensively as the first English literary work to mention Valentine's Day in connection with romance - 'the first kind of mention that we get in English poetry is in a poem by Chaucer called The Parliament of Fowls'

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Tom mentions Chaucer translating this medieval work when discussing the language of courtly love - 'Chaucer is very keen on that, translating the romance of the Rose'

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Implied reference when discussing Emperor Claudius - 'the stutterer, the hero of Robert Graves' (transcribed as 'Grayson') - distinguishing the early Emperor Claudius from Claudius Gothicus

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Tom references this 18th century compendium when discussing Catholic attempts to explain Valentine's Day origins - 'Butler as in Butler's Lives, the great kind of compendium of saints' lives that gets written in the 18th century'

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Dominic mentions this 1797 publication as a manual for writing Valentine poems - 'somebody publishes a book called The Young Man's Valentine Writer. So a manual about how to write nice Valentine poems'

Context:

Referenced in discussion of the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie on Valentine's Day - 'the issuing of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khamenei'