"The Great Bird of Love brims with a life so intense that it
        must be told quietly. The pages are quirky, full of surprise, variety,
        humor, and the sustaining reliable voice of a worthy guide to experience.
        These poems come from perception informed by sympathy, and the language
        is alive with verbal adventure."
        -- William Stafford
      A book in the National Poetry Series
 

Love in Marriage (also translated under the titles Marriage Love and Conjugial Love) is one of the most challenging works written by Swedish scientist and visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). It is not only about marriage as a social institution—both in the ways that it works and the ways that it can be a source of strife—but about the spiritual implications of marriage and the ways that two human beings can form, continue, and deepen their emotional and spiritual connection in this world and the next. While much of the commentary about marriage and romantic relationships is best understood in the context of eighteenth-century Swedish culture, the spiritual commentary sheds important light on the dualism that pervades Swedenborg’s theology and his stress on the importance of love for others. David Gladish’s contemporary translation, originally published in 1992, remains one of the most vibrant renditions of this work in the English language.