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"Why are you capable of imagining a world without letters? Without good souls who write letters, without 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, addresses, 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, quoted in Ivask 213)
Why, indeed? For many, myself included, going out to the mailbox and finding an unexpected letter from a friend is perhaps one of the great, simple pleasures of life. Indeed, the mail forms an intrinsic part of American culture and identity.
According to the National Postal Museum, human beings have relied on the mail for communication for as long as civilization has possessed written language.
(Click here for a very quick introduction to the history of letter-writing.)
The Museum's introductory web page describes mail routes "carved through the terrain of America's northeast," "from the moment colonits settled." Mail was furthermore "vital in helping the colonies attain a level of cooperation necessary for the success of the American Revolution." Like all successful institutions, the American postal service "evolved in tandem with America's industrial, technological and social progress."
Such weighty statements are impressive, but they perhaps leave out the most necessary element for the survival and proliferation of the post: the letter itself. In "The Letter: A Dying Art?," Ivar Ivask argues as to the importance of letters for interpersonal communication. He writes, "letters, like diaries, are nothing if not personal. Every person has had in his life at least one or several correspondences which profoundly shaped, even directed his life" (Ivask 213-214). Familiar letter-writing is often rhapsodized as "perhaps the most intimate manifestation of our humanity for millenia" (214).
Why are letters such an integral part of our notions of "keeping in touch"? Richard Ellman states that "the letter is itself a literary form, through which writer and recipient play a game of concealment and revealment" (qtd. in Brown 216). Familiar letters form a tangible link between distant acquaintances, and provide a means of informing each other as to the noteworthy (as well as un-noteworthy) events of the correspondents' daily lives. Theorist John L. Brown describes the letter as a sort of "continuing autobiography" (221). Furthermore, letters are "sent to someone as a kind of gift"--a letter acts a stand-in for a friend who cannot be present physically (Demetrius, qtd. in Guillen 9). The act of letter-writing is also beneficial for the letter-writer. E.M. Cioran notes that "the letter . . . represents a major event of solitude" (418). Letter-writing also carries with it the thrill of creative expression, and consequently, "to compose a letter . . . is to become better conscious of ourselves" (Salinas, qtd. in Guillen 5).
Lately, however, there has been much debate as to whether advances in information and communications technologies spell the demise of the letter as we know it. "The written word has been vanquished by the audiovisual," claims John Brown (215). Consequently, "the health of the letter has been undermined and finally dealt a fatal blow by the telephone, the telegram, the cassette, [and] the fax" (215). Such technologies as the typewriter and word processor, some argue, have eliminated "the meditative liesure necessary for the production of discursive letters" (Mittleman 221).
Others wonder whether "the frantic pace of modern life must have destroyed forever the intimacy and charm" of old-fashioned letters (Mittleman 221). The constant flow of junk mail seems also to have devalued the personal letter, as Brown explains: "The flood of such patently phony missives, couched in terms of instant intimacy, is the junk mail which constitutes a major part of the correspondence most of us now recieve" (215).
Most arguments, however, relate the imminent demise of letter-writing by the hands of technology. The Postmaster General of the United States spoke in 1994 about his own opinions on the subject:
"The postal prophets of doom are once again predicting the demise of the Postal Service and the end of all mail. When I look at us today--at the mail and the U.S. Postal Service--I see strength, progress and great potential. The end of mail is nowhere in sight." (qtd. in Burton, Maitland)
As electronic mail becomes more and more widespread as a means of relaying information previously reserved for paper letters, how will our notions of "keeping in touch" be altered?
Click here to go on to the next section...
For further information, Meredith Burton and Peter Maitland have written an exhaustive study of "The Effects of Electronic Mail on Traditional Postal Services."
