"...good souls who write letters..."

More from my files....


... In 1999, I printed out an article from the Internet titled "Letter-Writing--A Dying Art?" According to the notes at the top of the page, it was on the Beloit College Web site, possibly it was something posted by a student, maybe a student named Morrow. I'm not sure.

Anyway, the article quoted another article in a 1990 issue of the magazine "World Literature Today." That article from almost 20 years ago was "The Letter: A Dying Art?" by Ivar Ivask (1927-1992), the editor-in-chief of WLT at the time.

Ivask quoted Spanish poet Pedro Salinas (1891-1951):

Why are you capable of imagining a world without
letters? Without good souls who write letters, with­
out other souls who read and enjoy them, without
those third-party souls who take them from this
person to that person -- that is, a world without
senders, addressees, and letter carriers? A universe
in which all is said dryly, in abbreviated fashion,
hurriedly and on the run, without art and without
grace?

Pedro Salinas, "Defense of the Missive Letter
and of Epistolary Correspondence" ( 1948 )

All of the writers involved in the articles champion the importance of letters and letter writing in our society.

I think one of the most important things we can do to keep letter writing alive is to keep writing letters and teaching the younger generation the joys of receiving a letter in the mail.

Here are some links, if you're interested in reading more:

"Letter Writing--A Dying Art" — originally published in 1996 at www.beloit.edu

An excerpt from "The Letter: A Dying Art?" by Ivar Ivask, originally published in World Literature Today

More on Pedro Salinas

Another take on letter writing: A World Without Letters?