A Sentimental Education

The NY Times February 9th Book Review contained a section entitled, "A Sentimental Education" which contained reflections of a dozen writers on what books taught them about love.

I was struck by Mary Bly's analysis of "Romeo and Juliet":

As the play opens, Romeo is transfixed by his ability to play with language and desperately looking for an object of devotion. He greets Juliet with the first line of a quatrain — “If I profane with my unworthiest hand” — and the two proceed to build a sonnet together, first alternating stanzas, then lines. As Juliet conforms to Romeo’s rhyme scheme, the subject veers from chaste devotion to passion. They must listen intently in order to construct shared rhymes, and Shakespeare punctuates their final couplet with a kiss.

 I doubt I would ever realize that myself.

The same issue had a review of Edmund White's "Inside a Pearl" in which White described himself as "too abstemious, too French to be a good American writer".  The reviewer notes that the reference is to tobacco and alcohol, not "good  meals or sexual encounters, even after being told that he was H.I.V. positive".