On Love and Writing

(sigh.) Valentine's Day is upon us.

Word associations
Let's play a word-association game. When I say "love," among the things that you associate with that word probably include "poetry" and "letters." Why is it that no other emotion or feeling evokes strong associations with specific types of writing? Think about it. If I say "peace," you might think of a babbling brook or an idyllic nature scene, but not a type of writing. If I say "anger," you may think of the color red or the image of a fist, but not a type of writing. Sure, anger can fuel an outraged letter to the editor, or the desire for peace may prompt the writing of a treaty, but I'd venture to say that no other "feeling" evokes the direct association with writing like love does. Do a Google test. If you Google "love" and scroll down to "searches related to" you'll see both "love letters"and "love poems." Nothing similar happens with any other emotion.

Possible explanations
Why is that? I've been sitting here for a while now trying to think of a plausible explanation. I was going to suggest that there's something about love that makes us want to express it lyrically. But there are plenty of other subjects that are commonly expressed lyrically, like sadness and death. I was going to say that maybe writing letters give us a way to express our emotions passively, without having to suffer the vulnerability of expressing our emotions to the object of our affections directly. But then I realized that many love letters are never meant to be given to the one to whom they're addressed, but instead lie in the crevices of dusty high school notebooks, scrawled in forgotten journals, or hidden away in shoeboxes full of sentimental junk.

Proof in a Shakespearean sonnet
I finally came to a conclusion that may be more convincing. I think love is evocative of writing because writing produces something tangible and lasting. Feelings may subject to change, (and forgive the implication that love is a mere feeling) but a sentiment written down on a piece of paper that is subsequently preserved becomes immortalized. Not that the feeling persists, necessarily, but the writing is a testament to its existence in its time.

It brings to mind Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Though things in life and nature constantly change, the woman's "eternal summer" will never fade "so long as men can breathe or eyes can see" because the poem itself has preserved her beauty forever.

Happy Valentine's Day!