A love letter is a romantic way to express feelings of love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

 in written form

Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...

. Delivered by hand, by mail

Mail

Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...

 or romantically left in a secret location, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation of feelings. Love letters may 'move through the widest range of emotions - devotion, disappointment, grief and indignation, self-confidence, ambition, impatience, self-reproach and resignation'.

Historical sketch

The love letter is probably almost as old as written civilization itself. Examples from Ancient Egypt range from the most formal - 'the royal widow...Ankhesenamun

Ankhesenamun

Ankhesenamun was a queen of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. Born as Ankhesenpaaten, she was the third of six known daughters of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti, and became the Great Royal Wife of her cousin Tutankhamun. The change in her name reflects the changes...

 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'. Imperial China might demand a higher degree of literary skill: 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 Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Rome, 'the tricky construction and reception of the love letter' formed the centre of his Ars Amatoria

Ars Amatoria

The Ars amatoria is an instructional love elegy in three books by the Roman poet Ovid, penned around 2 CE. It claims to provide teaching in three areas of general preoccupation: how and where to find women in Rome, how to seduce them, and how to prevent others from stealing them.-Background:After...

 or Art of Love: 'the love letter is situated at the core of Ovidian erotics

Eroticism

Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...

'. The Middle Ages saw the formal development of the Ars dictaminis

Ars dictaminis

The ars dictaminis was the medieval description of the art of prose composition, and more specifically of the writing of letters . It is closely linked to the ars dictandi, covering the composition of documents other than letters. The standing assumption was that these writings would be composed in...

, 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 fervours 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

Richard Steele

Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator....

's Spectator

The Spectator

The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

. 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"'.

The modern love letter

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

Flapper

Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...

 'absorbed in composing one of those non-committal, marvellously elusive letters that only a young girl can write' - and may even have been encouraged by the then prevalence of global war. Before the wide use of telecommunications, letters were one of the few ways for a couple to remain in contact, particularly in wartime: when one of them was posted or stationed some distance from the other, the "being apart" often intensified emotions. Sometimes a desired normal communication could lead to a letter expressing love, longing and desires: 'the very act of writing often triggers love feelings in the writer'. During these times, "love letters" were the only means of communication, and soldiers even swapped addresses of desirable young ladies so that an initial communication and possible start of a relationship could be initiated. On the downside, when a correspondence was delayed, 'our move, the secrecy, the battle...it could be explained, but no explanation soothed my worry'; yet when letters came, operational contingencies might mean the need to 'Fold the letter carefully away...Fold that whole world away, and passion and love, so that they couldn't be hurt; yet of course they were there...when I saw a man, any man, reading a letter'.

In the second half of the century, with the coming of the Permissive society

Permissive society

The permissive society is a society where social norms are becoming increasingly liberal. This usually accompanies a change in what is considered deviant. While typically preserving the rule "do not harm others", a permissive society would have few other moral codes...

 - 'imprisoning in physical bonding' - and the instantaneity of the Information Age

Information Age

The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...

, the more distanced and nuanced art of the love letter might be said to have fallen somewhat into disrepute: 'what could be more tradition-bound than a woman's (heterosexual) love letter?'. A couple might instead ironically separate with the exchange, '"You should have said - I'll write." "But we won't." "No, but let's preserve the forms, the forms at least..."'.

Even in the electronic age, however, the humble love letter may possibly still play its part in life, if in new formats (exemplified perhaps in You've Got Mail

You've Got Mail

You've Got Mail is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. It was written by Nora and Delia Ephron based on the play Parfumerie by Miklós László. The film is about two letter-writing lovers who are completely unaware that their sweetheart is in...

); and 'on the internet, one can find numerous sites where people obtain advice on how to write a love letter'. Sometimes letters are preferable to face-to-face contact because they can be written as the thoughts come to the author's mind. This may allow feelings to be more easily expressed than if the writer were in the beloved's presence. Further, expressing strong emotional feelings to paper or some other permanent form can be an expression within itself of desire and the importance of the beloved and the lover's emotions. Perhaps any 'correspondence is a kind of love affair...tinged by a subtle but palpable eroticism'; while by contrast, in mobile, Twitter or Tweet, 'telegraphese was infectious', and the sign-off '"LOL! B cool B N touch bye"...felt like having a disinterested young mother'.

The expression of feelings may be made to an existing love or in the hope of establishing a new relationship; and the increasing rarity and consequent emotional charm of personal mail may also serve to emphasize the emotional importance of the message.

"Possession"

In A. S. Byatt

A. S. Byatt

Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, DBE is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner...

's Possession, the (twentieth century) plot turns on the discovery of love letters between two (nineteenth century) literary figures: 'as though you'd found - Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

's love letters'. In his last letter, returning the correspondence, the man says 'You should burn them, I think, and yet, if Abelard had destroyed Eloisa's marvellous words, if the Portuguese Nun

Letters of a Portuguese Nun

The Letters of a Portuguese Nun , first published anonymously by Claude Barbin in Paris in 1669, is a work believed by most scholars to be epistolary fiction in the form of five letters written by Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues , a minor peer, diplomat, secretary to the Prince...

 had kept silent, how much the poorer would we not be, how much less wise?'.

The book also explored how love letters subsequently 'exclude the reader as reader, they are written, if they are true letters, for a reader'; as well as the 'typically unrecognised quality of...the keeping of distance' in the face of the cult of 'letting it all hang out...we question everything except the centrality of sexuality' - a theme epitomised perhaps in the fate of the letters themselves.

Encore:"A Love Letter"

Lacan

Lacan

Lacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...

 consistently linked desire and the letter: 'The function of desire is a last residuum of the effect of the signifier in the subject'. Indeed he called a late seminar "A Love Letter", emphasising therein that 'speaking of love is in itself a jouissance '. It was perhaps with respect to the love letter that he conceded that 'in the life of a man, a woman is something he believes in...believes her effectively to be saying something. That's when things get stopped up - to believe in, one believes her. It's what's called love'. Fortunately (he added) 'Believing a woman is, thank God, a widespread state - which makes for company, one is no longer all alone'.

Style and setting

As with any letter, a love letter could be written in any structure or style. One historically popular method is as a sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 or other form of poem. William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...

 are often cited as good examples of how to write emotional themes. Structure and suggestions of love letters have formed the subject of many published books, such as the anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 Love Letters of Great Men

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....

. 'After reading hundreds of love letters for her collection The Book of Love Cathy N. Davidson confesses, "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 symbolize the pain felt. In the past, love letters also needed to be returned as a matter of honor: a love letter, particularly from a lady, could be compromising or embarrassing later in life, and the use of 'compromising letters...for blackmailing or other purposes' was a Victorian cliche.

Some stationery

Stationery

Stationery has historically meant a wide gamut of materials: paper and office supplies, writing implements, greeting cards, glue, pencil case etc.-History of stationery:...

 companies produce paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 and envelope

Envelope

An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter or card....

s specifically for love letters. Some of these are scented

Olfaction

Olfaction is the sense of smell. This sense is mediated by specialized sensory cells of the nasal cavity of vertebrates, and, by analogy, sensory cells of the antennae of invertebrates...

 - 'ground up lavender...a whole new sensory experience in letter reading' - though most people prefer to spray them with their own perfume

Perfume

Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and/or aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces "a pleasant scent"...

. This emphasizes, in the receiver's mind, the physical connection that occurred between them in this form of communication and thus may strengthen the overall impact of the letter.

See also

• Poison pen letter
  Poison pen letter
  A poison pen letter is a letter or note containing unpleasant, abusive or malicious statements or accusations about the recipient or a third party. It is usually sent anonymously. Poison pen letters are usually composed and sent to upset the recipient...
  
  
• Sexting
  Sexting
  Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones. The term was first popularized in early 21st century, and is a portmanteau of sex and texting, where the latter is meant in the wide sense of sending a text possibly with...
  
  
• Text Messaging
  Text messaging
  Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
  
  
• Valentine's Day
  Valentine's Day
  Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
  
  
• Victorian letter writing guides
  Victorian letter writing guides
  As letters became more and more popular as a means of communication, guides sprang up accordingly about just how one was to write a letter, what was proper, and what was out of the question...
  
  

Further reading

Ursula Doyle, Love Letters of Great Women (2009)

Bill Shapiro, Other People's Love Letters (2007)

Romantic Text Messages, The New Love Letters