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 affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love o ...

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, book 10, chapter 52, it is addressed by princess

Rukmini Rukmini ( sa, रुक्मिणी, , ) is a Hindu goddess and the first queen and chief wife of Krishna. In Vaishnava tradition, she is described as Krishna's principal queen in Dvaraka, as well as the chief of his wives. She is an in ...

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 (gur ...

messenger Sunanda. Examples from Ancient Egypt range from the most formal, and possibly practical – "The royal widow . . .

Ankhesenamun Ankhesenamun (, "Her Life Is of Amun"; c. 1348 or c. 1342 – after 1322 BC) was a queen who lived during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt as the pharaoh Akhenaten's daughter and subsequently became the Great Royal Wife of pharaoh Tutankhamun. Born Ank ...

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 tw ...

'' 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 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

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 '' nundin ...

. The Middle Ages saw the formal development of the

Ars dictaminis ''A''rs dictaminis (or ''ars dictandi'') refers to the art of letter-writing. The art of letter-writing often intersects with the art of rhetoric. History of Letter-Writing Greco-Roman Theory Early examples of letter-writing theory can be ...

, 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 D ...

's '' Spectator''. Perhaps in reaction, the artificiality of the concept came to be distrusted by the

Romantics Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

: "'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 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

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 accepta ...

"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 Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

'' "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 opposing ...

, 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 A permissive society, also referred to as permissive culture, is a society in which some social norms become increasingly liberal, especially with regard to sexual freedom. This usually accompanies a change in what is considered deviant. While ty ...

- 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 Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book '' Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental ...

(naturalist and writer of ''

Silent Spring ''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading d ...

'') 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 C ...

and

Ruth Benedict Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist. She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Re ...

, painters Frida Kahlo and

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

, 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 Lorena Alice "Hick" Hickok (March 7, 1893 – May 1, 1968) was a pioneering American journalist and devoted friend and mentor to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. After an unhappy and unsettled childhood, Hickok found success as a reporter for the ...

21st century

In mid-2000, a computer worm named ''

ILOVEYOU ILOVEYOU, sometimes referred to as Love Bug or Love Letter for you, is a computer worm that infected over ten million Windows personal computers on and after 5 May 2000. It started spreading as an email message with the subject line "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 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 S ...

''. 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.

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 '' Love Letters of Great Men''.

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 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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