Lidia Jean Kott is an intern at NPR Books.
Last month on the HBO show Girls, Hannah (Lena Dunham), interrupts a romantic moment to ask Sandy (Donald Glover) if he has had the chance to read an essay she wrote. The mood changes. "I've just been so busy, I haven't been able to ..." In fact, he had read it — and didn't like it. By the end of the scene, they're no longer dating. In honor of Valentine's Day, here are three literary couples who not only read each other's work with pleasure — but also understood it and liked it, and even fell in love because of it. Unlike the romance of say, Dante and Beatrice, these relationships are all built on literary collaboration. And what could be more romantic than that?
Literary Partnerships That Became Something More
Zadie Smith and Nick Laird
Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning
Each of these romances began in writing; proving that love can and should exist both on the page and in real life.
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