Love letter
Mentioned in the Bhagavatha Purana, book 10, chapter 52, it is addressed by princess Rukmini to King Krishna and carried to him by her Brahmin messenger Sunanda.
[2] 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.
Etiquette manuals, magazines, and book-length guides provided advice and sample letters while at the same time insisting that the writer should write naturally and sincerely.
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.
[14] During World War II, anti-aircraft gunner Gilbert Bradley and infantryman Gordon Bowsher exchanged intimate love letters, which are currently owned by the Oswestry Town Museum.
[16][17][18] In the second half of the century, with the coming of a more permissive society,[19] and the immediacy afforded by the technology of the Information Age, the nuanced art of the love letter became old-fashioned, even anachronistic.
[21] Other love letter-writers of the 20th century include anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena Hickok.
[23] In mid-2000, a computer worm named ILOVEYOU spread rapidly by sending malicious emails to contacts pretending to contain a love letter.
The range of emotions expressed can span from adulation to obsession, and include devotion, disappointment, grief and indignation, self-confidence, ambition, impatience, self-reproach and resignation.
[26] 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.
While scented stationery for love letters is commercially available, some writers prefer to use their own perfume to trigger emotions specifically associated with being with them.
