A love letter is an expression of

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

in written form. However delivered, the

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation and description of feelings.

History

One of the oldest references to a love letter dates to Indian mythology of more than 5000 years ago. Mentioned in the

Bhagavatha Purana The ''Bhagavata Purana'' ( sa, भागवतपुराण; ), also known as the ''Srimad Bhagavatam'', ''Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana'' or simply ''Bhagavata'', is one of Hinduism's eighteen great Puranas (''Mahapuranas''). Composed in Sa ...

, book 10, chapter 52, it is addressed by princess Rukmini to king

Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...

and carried to him by her

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

messenger Sunanda. Examples from Ancient Egypt range from the most formal, and possibly practical – "The royal widow . . . Ankhesenamun wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites, Egypt's old enemy, begging him to send one of his sons to Egypt to marry her" – to the down-to-earth: Let me "bathe in thy presence, that I may let thee see my beauty in my tunic of finest linen, when it is wet". A fine expression of literary skill can be found in Imperial China: when a heroine, faced with an arranged marriage, wrote to her childhood sweetheart, he exclaimed, "What choice talent speaks in her well-chosen words . . . everything breathes the style of a Li T'ai Po. How on earth can anyone want to marry her off to some humdrum clod?" In Ancient Rome, "the tricky construction and reception of the love letter" formed the center of

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's ''

Ars Amatoria The ''Ars amatoria'' ( en, The Art of Love) is an instructional elegy series in three books by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. It was written in 2 AD. Background Book one of ''Ars amatoria'' was written to show a man how to find a woman. In book two ...

'' or ''Art of Love'': "The love letter is situated at the core of Ovidian erotics". p. 133 and p. 127 Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and writer of ''

Meditations ''Meditations'' () is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the ''Meditations'' in Koine ...

'', exchanged love letters with his tutor,

Marcus Cornelius Fronto Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100late 160s AD), best known as Fronto, was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician, and advocate. Of Berber origin, he was born at Cirta (modern-day Constantine, Algeria) in Numidia. He was suffect consul for the ''nundinium' ...

. The Middle Ages saw the formal development of the Ars dictaminis, including the art of the love letter from opening to close. For salutations, "the scale in love letters is nicely graded from 'To the noble and discreet lady P., adorned with every elegance, greeting' to the lyrical fervors of 'Half of my soul and light of my eyes . . . greeting, and that delight which is beyond all word and deed to express'". The substance similarly "ranges from doubtful equivoque to exquisite and fantastic dreaming", rising to appeals for "the assurance 'that you care for me the way I care for you'". The love letter continued to be taught as a skill at the start of the eighteenth century, as in

Richard Steele Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine ''The Spectator''. Early life Steele was born in Du ...

's ''

Spectator ''Spectator'' or ''The Spectator'' may refer to: *Spectator sport, a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its matches *Audience Publications Canada * ''The Hamilton Spectator'', a Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, ...

''. Perhaps in reaction, the artificiality of the concept came to be distrusted by the Romantics: "'A love-letter? My letter – a love-letter? It . . . came straight from my heart'".

20th century

The love letter continued to flourish in the first half of the twentieth-century– F Scott Fitzgerald gives us a 1920s

Flapper Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptab ...

"absorbed in composing one of those non-committal, marvelously elusive letters that only a young girl can write."

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

and Vita Sackville-West's flirtatious love letters were one aspect of their complicated relationship.

Nigel Nicolson Nigel Nicolson (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician. Early life and education Nicolson was the second son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had an elder brother Ben, ...

, Sackville-West's son, called Woolf's '' Orlando'' "the longest and most charming love-letter in literature" because of the inspiration Woolf took from her friend and lover, Sackville-West. Before the development of widespread means of telecommunications, letters were one of the few ways for a distant couple to remain in contact, particularly in wartime. The strains on either end of such a relationship could intensify emotions and lead to letters going beyond simple communication to expressions of love, longing and desires. It is claimed that the very act of writing can trigger feelings of love in the writer. Secrecy, delays in transit, and the exigencies of maneuvers could further complicate the communication between two parties, whatever their degree of involvement. So precious could love letters be that even already read ones would even be brought into battle and read again for solace during a break in the action. Others would defer, compartmentalizing their feelings and leaving a letter folded away where it would cause no pain. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, anti-aircraft gunner Gilbert Bradley and infantryman Gordon Bowsher exchanged intimate love letters, which are currently owned by the Oswestry Town Museum. Because of the criminalization of homosexuality in England during the 1940s, large collections of queer love letters from that period are rare. "The Letter Men," a short film written and directed by Andrew Vallentine, recreates Bradley and Bowsher's love story through their letters. In the second half of the century, with the coming of a more permissive society - and the immediacy afforded by the technology of the

Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...

, the nuanced art of the love letter became old-fashioned, even anachronistic. Despite the availability of new forms of communication, many couples still exchanged love letters. In 1953, Rachel Carson (naturalist and writer of '' Silent Spring'') met Dorothy Freeman and two exchanged about 900 letters over 12 years. While they destroyed some of their letters to protect themselves, Freeman's granddaughter edited the surviving ones, which were published in 1995. Other love letter-writers of the 20th century include anthropologists

Margaret Mead Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard Co ...

and Ruth Benedict, painters

Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...

and Diego Rivera, poets

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

and

Peter Orlovsky Peter Anton Orlovsky (July 8, 1933 – May 30, 2010) was an American poet and actor. He was the long-time partner of Allen Ginsberg. Early life and career Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine (née ...

, and first lady

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

and journalist Lorena Hickok.

21st century

In mid-2000, a

computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wil ...

named '' ILOVEYOU'' spread rapidly by sending malicious emails to contacts pretending to contain a love letter.

Today

However, with the arrival of the Internet and its iconic

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

notice "You've Got Mail", written expressions of love made a partial comeback – and provided the plot device for a 1998

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

by that name, ''

You've Got Mail ''You've Got Mail'' is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Inspired by the 1937 Hungarian play '' Parfumerie'' by Miklós László (which had earlier been adapted in 1940 as ''The Shop ...

''. So far out of fashion had written love letters fallen that in the 2000s one can find websites where advice is given on how to write one. As ever, an advantage of written communication – being able to express thoughts and feelings as they come to a writer's mind – remains. For some this is easier than doing so face to face. Also, the very act of communicating a permanent expression of feelings to another conveys the importance of the writer's emotions to the recipient. In contrast, in mobile,

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

or Tweet, "telegraphese" is widespread, and a sign-off such as "LOL! B cool B N touch bye" could have the ring of being composed by a "disinterested young mother".

Form

A love letter has no specific form. It can be lengthy, elaborate, and composed on scented stationery, or a few poignant words penciled on a scrap of paper or piece of bark. ''What'' is communicated and ''how'' determine whether it is one or not. The range of emotions expressed can span adulation to obsession, and include devotion, disappointment, grief and indignation, self-confidence, ambition, impatience, self-reproach and resignation. A love letter may take another literary form than simple prose. A historically popular one was the

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

, particularly in the form of a

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...

William Shakespeare's William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

are particularly cited. Structure and suggestions of love letters have been examined in works such as 1992's ''The Book of Love: Writers and Their Love Letters'' and the 2008

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

Love Letters of Great Men ''Love Letters of Great Men, Vol. 1'' is an anthology of romantic letters written by leading male historical figures. The book plays a key role in the plot of the American film ''Sex and the City''. The book includes love letters written by Ro ...

''.

Cathy Davidson Cathy N. Davidson (born 1949) is an American scholar and university professor. Beginning July 1, 2014, she is a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She was a professor of English at Duke University in 2006. She ...

, author of the former, confesses that after reading hundreds of love letters for her collection, "The more titles I read, the less I was able to generalize about female versus male ways of loving or expressing that love". After the end of a relationship, returning love letters to the sender or burning them can be a release to their recipient, or intended to hurt their author. In the past, return could also be a matter of honor, as a love letter, particularly from a lady, could be compromising or embarrassing, to the point where the use of "compromising letters...for blackmailing or other purposes"Arthur Conan Doyle, ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' (Oxford 1993) p. 13 became a

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

cliche. While scented stationery for love letters is commercially available, some women prefer to use their own

perfume Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...

to trigger emotions specifically associated with being with them.

References

External links

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