When Did Love Letters Go Out of Style? Asking For A Friend | The Odyssey Online
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When Did Love Letters Go Out of Style? Asking For A Friend

​​"I don't want to live - I want to love first, and live incidentally."

Lauren Brocato
Jun 03, 2018
University of Missouri
216
When Did Love Letters Go Out of Style? Asking For A Friend
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My newest read, Love Letters of Great Men, Vol. 1, features love letters from some of history's greatest lovers. It can be seen through these letters that men love and long for love the same way they do today, just in a different manner.

Carrie Bradshaw once challenged Mr. Big to "put his love for her in writing."

Why have we stopped challenging men to do this for us today? We are so accustomed to receiving validation from a witty text message rather than a handwritten note. Obviously, as Mr. Big notes, the men in the book were separated by war and tragedy, but a written letter once in a while is sure to win you some brownie points.

Here are some of my favorite love letters penned by the men of our past, just in case you need a little inspiration for your next attempt at a handwritten message:

"We never thought that our thirty-third anniversary would find us deep in our second war and me again at the front. Well, darling, we've lived up to the most important part of the ceremony, "In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, till death do you part.

Much, much love."

- Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., May 20, 1943


"To Fanny Brawne:

I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me.

I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving...

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion.

I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more.

I could be martyr'd for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you.

My creed is love and you are its only tenet - you have ravish'd me away by a power I cannot resist."

- John Keats, March 1820

Yes, these letters are far more dramatic than any letter in 2018 would be, but they're quite interesting to compare to today's proclamations of love. Does undying love like this still exist today? The answer to that is unknown, but for now I will leave you with a line from a love letter written by the great F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"I don't want to live - I want to love first, and live incidentally."

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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