Love Guides—Then and Now

If you were to google “best books on modern dating” today, the first book to pop up would be Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance, which purports to be a research-driven investigation into what dating is in the 21^st century. In particular, Ansari focuses on how technology and the multiplicity of options it provides has changed the way people approach finding love, as well as how they define love itself. While the emphasis on technology is certainly modern, the idea of writing a guidebook to dating long predates the printing press. One of the earliest books of this genre is the Ars Amatoria, written by the Roman poet Ovid in 2 CE. Ovid’s goal was to instruct upper-class men on how to develop their skills in the “art of love,” or, in other words, how to get women to like and sleep with them (Ovid 123). It is unclear the extent to which this advice was meant satirically, because although Ovid partially attributed his exile from Rome to the Ars Amatoria’s popularization, it seems unlikely that the Roman aristocracy took it as a joke.

Despite the fact that these two authors were writing more than two millennia and thousands of miles apart, they share some surprising similarities. In writing about the process of finding love, both men situate themselves as experts on the subject, though in different ways. Ovid boldly claims in his opening chapter that “love’s ruled by art,” suggesting that not only can love be taught, but that he is the teacher best suited for the job (Ovid 123). Ansari claims authority by co-authoring his book with NYU sociologist Eric Klineberg, whose authorial presence and academic credentials also implies that love is something studyable and teachable. While both men take on the role of educator-narrator for the sake of their respective publications, both come from backgrounds in entertainment—Ovid was a poet, and Ansari is an actor/comedian. These careers put both men in the public spotlight, so perhaps it is unsurprising that each of them faced a public reckoning directly or indirectly related to their love guides. Ovid implied that his exile from Rome was due to an offensive poem, which many scholars have taken to mean the Ars Amatoria, while Ansari was accused of sexual misconduct by a former romantic partner in 2018 and has spent the last couple of years dealing with the aftermath.

The similarities between these two men and their literary careers are counterbalanced by many differences, but in my view the most significant of these is their imagined audience. As previously mentioned, Ovid was writing to men of his same social class, and although it is possible that some educated women got their hands on his book, his readers were probably men like him. Thus, Ovid could be dismissive of female experiences and desires without offending his intended audience. Ansari, on the other hand, has a much more diverse and expansive audience. As a brown man in America, he isn’t writing from a position of supreme social power, and in order to be relatable he has to keep in mind that people unlike himself will read the book—including women, other minority groups, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. He handles this daunting task by not centering his romantic experience as the paradigm of romantic bliss, and by being upfront about his struggles with modern dating and the many decisions it entails. In short, Ansari is writing in a world where either half of a romantic partnership might peruse his book for advice, while Ovid was writing during a time when only men would have been considered the appropriate audience for a dating guide. 

The comparison between these two men indicate that there is some through line between the Ars Amatoria and Modern Romance, even if it is only that love guides are often written by men with dubious credentials. If this lack of proper credentials continues to be a trend in western society, here’s to hoping there will be a little more gender diversity in who does the writing in the future.    

Works Cited

 

Ansari, Aziz. “Aziz Ansari: Love, Online Dating, Modern Romance and the Internet.” Time, Time, time.com/aziz-ansari-modern-romance/. 

Ovid. Ars Amatoria. Translated by A. S. Kline, Poetry in Translation, 2001. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/ArtofLoveBkI.php.