Love begets poetry; poetry begets love. So thinkers from Plato onwards have claimed; and even today, when poetry has largely disappeared from the mainstream of popular culture, it is still commonly considered the most seductive of all forms of art. But why should this be? What are the connections between poetry and love that lead us to associate them so strongly with one another? In this study Erik Gray draws on a broad range of Western thought and poetry to reveal the qualities and structures that love and poetry share. Above all, he argues, both are founded on paradox. Love is at once...