There is always a universal query that keeps disturbing us. What is the knot that binds love so strong? Is it beauty, brains, or common interests and beliefs? For me it is a combination of all these. It was quite intriguing going through the love letters of great men the other day. I realized there was more to love than just courting. There was a very deep animation running through their beings, a ‘Platonic’ sort of magnetic attraction that put them on the same mental plane and I thought I would love to share it with you too. So for all the Valentines out there, Spring calls for a celebration of love and memories of its past and present. As every year, I love to sing Tagore’s ‘boshonte phool gathlo amar joyer mala/boilo praney dokhin haowa,’ more because it comes right after another favourite ‘Orey bhai Fagun legechhe bon-e bon-e, in ‘mone mone’too!
Today in an attempt to embellish my writing with a collection of love letters of great men I find that most of my poems are in a similar emotional and social milieu and relate to the present generation. Although love has through the ages travelled effortlessly and has kept men engaged since Creation, it is sometimes trivial, yet mundane and definitely soul touching. Hopefully, the theme of this article might be eye-catching and readable. This is the distinctive feature of a writer who is trying to adopt a masterful way of reaching out to people who are in love.
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Let us begin by going through John Keats’ (1795-1821) love letter to Fanny Brawne, a Hampstead neighbour, to whom he was engaged.
To Fanny Brawn (July 1819):
My sweet girl,
I am always astounded that any absent one should have the luxurious power over my senses. I must confess that I love you, the more in that I believe, you have liked me for my own sake, and for nothing else.
Ever yours, my love!
To Fanny Brawn (1820):
Sweetest Fanny,
You fear sometimes I do not love you so much as you wish! My dear girl, I love you ever and ever without reserve. The more I have known, the more I have loved. Do I not see a heart naturally furnished with wings imprison itself with me? My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it! I never felt my mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment upon no person but you… Past experience connected with the fact of my long separation from you gives me agonies which are scarcely to be talked of. The air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy. Ask yourself how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in loneliness. For myself I have been a martyr the whole time!
Yours forever,
J.Keats.
Victor Hugo (1812 -1885):
Adele Fouchur was a childhood friend with whom Hugo fell in love and later married.
To Adele Fouchur( January 1820)
A few words from you, my beloved Adele, have again changed the state of my mind. Then it is true that you love me, Adele? Tell me, can I trust in this enchanting idea? Don’t you think that I shall end by becoming insane with joy if ever I can pass the whole of my life at your feet, sure of making you as happy as I shall be myself, sure of being adored by you as you are adored by me? Adele, my beloved angel, would that I could prostrate myself before you as before a divinity.
Let us go through a love letter from another giant, William Congreve (1670- 1729), celebrated dramatist who wrote ‘The Way of The World’.
To Mrs.Arabella Hunt
Dear Madam
…Not believe that I love you? You cannot pretend to be so incredulous. If you don’t believe in my tongue, consult my eyes, consult your own. You will find by yours that they have charms, by mine that I have a heart which feels them. But love, almighty love seems in a moment to have removed me to a prodigious dislike from every object but you alone. In the midst of crowds I remain in solitude. Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you. Unlonely objects are all around me accepting thee, the charms of all the world appear to be translated to thee.
Richard Steele (1672 -1729), a journalist, writer, and politician, he called his wife Mary, ‘Dear Pru’. He also wrote more than four hundred letters both before and during their marriage.
Madam,
With what language shall I address my lovely fair, to acquaint her with the sentiments of a heart she delights to torture?
Alexander Pope (1688 -1744) wrote to Martha Blount:
Most divine, …that heart must have abundance of flames which at once are warmed by wine and you…
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 -1821) to his wife Josephine:
…I detest thee, thou art horrid, thou thus not write with love for thy husband, thou knowest the pleasure that thy letters afford him and thou doth not write a single line of even haphazard scribble.
Lord Byron (1788 -1824):
”Byronic’ has become shorthand for a particular type of romantic hero pale, dark haired, hollow-cheeked, cruel, reckless, and irresistible to many women. One of the most notorious entanglements of Byron’s life was with the married Lady Caroline Lamb.
… You know I would with pleasure give up all here and beyond the great, for you. I care not who knows what use is made of it, it is to you and to you only yourself, I was and am yours freely and entirely to obey, to honour, love, and fly with you.
To the Countess Guiccioli,( 25 August 1819):
But I more than love you and cannot cease to love you. Think of me sometimes, when the Alps and the oceans divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it.
Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)
To Elizabeth Barrett, on the morning of their wedding day (12 September 1846).
… My dearest own Ba! You have given me the highest, completest proof of love that ever one human being gave another. I am all gratitude and all pride, that any life has been so crowded but by you.
Addresses to your paramour have not changed much over the years. The thoughts are similar more or less, even at times the content of the messages is almost identical, for men are great when they are in love!
As Leona Lewis sings in ‘Keep Bleeding’:
Closed off from love/I did not need the pain
Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain
Time starts to pass / before you know if you are frozen
…Yet I know that the goal is to keep me from falling
But nothing is greater than the rush that comes with your embrace
And in this world of loneliness I see your face.
Mohsena Reza Shopna is a social activist and poet.
Today in an attempt to embellish my writing with a collection of love letters of great men I find that most of my poems are in a similar emotional and social milieu and relate to the present generation. Although love has through the ages travelled effortlessly and has kept men engaged since Creation, it is sometimes trivial, yet mundane and definitely soul touching. Hopefully, the theme of this article might be eye-catching and readable. This is the distinctive feature of a writer who is trying to adopt a masterful way of reaching out to people who are in love.
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Let us begin by going through John Keats’ (1795-1821) love letter to Fanny Brawne, a Hampstead neighbour, to whom he was engaged.
To Fanny Brawn (July 1819):
My sweet girl,
I am always astounded that any absent one should have the luxurious power over my senses. I must confess that I love you, the more in that I believe, you have liked me for my own sake, and for nothing else.
Ever yours, my love!
To Fanny Brawn (1820):
Sweetest Fanny,
You fear sometimes I do not love you so much as you wish! My dear girl, I love you ever and ever without reserve. The more I have known, the more I have loved. Do I not see a heart naturally furnished with wings imprison itself with me? My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it! I never felt my mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment upon no person but you… Past experience connected with the fact of my long separation from you gives me agonies which are scarcely to be talked of. The air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy. Ask yourself how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in loneliness. For myself I have been a martyr the whole time!
Yours forever,
J.Keats.
Victor Hugo (1812 -1885):
Adele Fouchur was a childhood friend with whom Hugo fell in love and later married.
To Adele Fouchur( January 1820)
A few words from you, my beloved Adele, have again changed the state of my mind. Then it is true that you love me, Adele? Tell me, can I trust in this enchanting idea? Don’t you think that I shall end by becoming insane with joy if ever I can pass the whole of my life at your feet, sure of making you as happy as I shall be myself, sure of being adored by you as you are adored by me? Adele, my beloved angel, would that I could prostrate myself before you as before a divinity.
Let us go through a love letter from another giant, William Congreve (1670- 1729), celebrated dramatist who wrote ‘The Way of The World’.
To Mrs.Arabella Hunt
Dear Madam
…Not believe that I love you? You cannot pretend to be so incredulous. If you don’t believe in my tongue, consult my eyes, consult your own. You will find by yours that they have charms, by mine that I have a heart which feels them. But love, almighty love seems in a moment to have removed me to a prodigious dislike from every object but you alone. In the midst of crowds I remain in solitude. Nothing but you can lay hold of my mind, and that can lay hold of nothing but you. Unlonely objects are all around me accepting thee, the charms of all the world appear to be translated to thee.
Richard Steele (1672 -1729), a journalist, writer, and politician, he called his wife Mary, ‘Dear Pru’. He also wrote more than four hundred letters both before and during their marriage.
Madam,
With what language shall I address my lovely fair, to acquaint her with the sentiments of a heart she delights to torture?
Alexander Pope (1688 -1744) wrote to Martha Blount:
Most divine, …that heart must have abundance of flames which at once are warmed by wine and you…
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 -1821) to his wife Josephine:
…I detest thee, thou art horrid, thou thus not write with love for thy husband, thou knowest the pleasure that thy letters afford him and thou doth not write a single line of even haphazard scribble.
Lord Byron (1788 -1824):
”Byronic’ has become shorthand for a particular type of romantic hero pale, dark haired, hollow-cheeked, cruel, reckless, and irresistible to many women. One of the most notorious entanglements of Byron’s life was with the married Lady Caroline Lamb.
… You know I would with pleasure give up all here and beyond the great, for you. I care not who knows what use is made of it, it is to you and to you only yourself, I was and am yours freely and entirely to obey, to honour, love, and fly with you.
To the Countess Guiccioli,( 25 August 1819):
But I more than love you and cannot cease to love you. Think of me sometimes, when the Alps and the oceans divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it.
Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)
To Elizabeth Barrett, on the morning of their wedding day (12 September 1846).
… My dearest own Ba! You have given me the highest, completest proof of love that ever one human being gave another. I am all gratitude and all pride, that any life has been so crowded but by you.
Addresses to your paramour have not changed much over the years. The thoughts are similar more or less, even at times the content of the messages is almost identical, for men are great when they are in love!
As Leona Lewis sings in ‘Keep Bleeding’:
Closed off from love/I did not need the pain
Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain
Time starts to pass / before you know if you are frozen
…Yet I know that the goal is to keep me from falling
But nothing is greater than the rush that comes with your embrace
And in this world of loneliness I see your face.
Mohsena Reza Shopna is a social activist and poet.
Source: Daliy star
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