Take the love letters of poet John Keats to his fiancée Fanny Brawne, for instance. In a letter from October 1819, he writes, “I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me.” His words alone are heart-wrenching. Yet they are made even more powerful when you learn that less than a year later, Keats left for Rome in an effort to cure his tuberculosis, but died there on 23rd February 1821, never seeing his love again.
If someone wrote that about me, I think I’d faint, screaming-goat-style.
A more contemporary example comes from Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner. A now-famous letter to his now ex-girlfriend, Alexa Chung, opens, “My mouth hasn't shut up about you since you kissed it.” I don’t know about you, but if someone wrote that about me, I think I’d faint, screaming-goat-style.
A good love letter is like a symphony, and after all, who wouldn’t want to be enraptured by that?
I’m not saying that love letters don’t have the potential to be cringeworthy. Think a written-down version of a terrible attempt to serenade someone, or be serenaded to, complete with shaky voice and out-of-tune guitar. But a good love letter is like a symphony, and after all, who wouldn’t want to be enraptured by that?