Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder ...

Absence makes the heart grow fonder – Does anyone know what this really means? According to learnenglishfeelgood.com it means “our feeling for those we love increases when we are apart from them” or phrases.org says it means “the lack of something increases the desire for it”. In layman’s terms, all this means it that the longer something is gone, the more you will miss it. But some people don’t feel that way, some say “out of sight, out of mind” which means if it’s not there and you don’t see it, you don’t miss it as much.

In origin, Sextus Propertius – a Roman poet – showed us the earliest from of this Idiom in his poem Elegies – “Always toward absent lovers loves tide stronger flow” (phrases.org). The more modern version is the title of an anonymous poem written in 1602 but it wasn’t until Thomas Haynes Bayly’s song, Isle of Beauty, was published in 1850 when it appeared to be more widely used – “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Isle of Beauty, Fare the well” (phrases.org).

Shakespeare used this saying in the first act of Othello when Desdemona said “I dote upon his very absence” (prideunlimited.com) and the idiom also appeared in the first line of Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody” written in 1602.

If you are ever missing something, just remember "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" :)