Affectionate
Tidbits:
Postcards as a Medium for Love around 1900.
Our verbal toolbox of everyday communication contains many formulaic
expressions. One – the end justifies the means – serves
to express the notion of some action running borderline against
socially approved norms. It applies quite fittingly to the epistolary
paradox of communicating private discourse on a wide-open postcard.
After the postcard had been introduced as a new means of verbal
intercourse in Germany in 1870, it elicited strong resentment among
the bourgeois middle class, who considered valued standards and
principles of written correspondence to be seriously at stake.1
Despite its rock-bottom postage, the generic blank postcard demonstrated
in numerous ways its insufficiency for conveying private messages.
Its general acceptance was hampered by its characteristic semi-public
distribution, and the limited and often repetitive verbal patterns
associated with its use. Small-scale on many levels yet lacking
the seriousness of a telegram, the use of a privately sent postcard
in the early days was restricted to occasions requiring an exceptional
demand for communicative efficiency, with its visible content a
straightforward message and its subtext an obligatory explanation
and an apology for this choice of cost-conscious contact. The functional
design, the obvious convenience, and the simple, unencrypted messages
of the postcard would seem to constrict its use, certainly leaving
little to offer for private verbal fancy and the discourse of the
heart. And yet, the love postcard emerged strongly as a subset of
general postcard communication and became a fashionable part of
late nineteenth century popular culture. To explain its increasing
popularity, one might again pull from that verbal toolbox and simply
declare that all is fair in love and war – the postcard included.
Undoubtedly, the medium did enjoy historic success as Feldpost-Correspondenzkarte
during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71. Even so, there remains
the crucial question of how meaningful for love's sake the medium
ultimately became. Furthermore: what were the socio-cultural
implications that provoked and shaped love discourse on postcards,
despite the medium's constitutional characteristics that were neither
compatible with the concept of love nor with the concept of written
communication in the nineteenth century? What designs of graphics
and text were generated to transform the postcard into a valuable
and acceptable medium of intimate interaction? Pursuing these questions
we will briefly elaborate on the phase that preceded successful
love card usage by explaining how the general postcard was adopted
for private communication.
Private postcard communication
The general postcard grew significantly and rapidly when it was
officially
authorized by the post office in addition to being a lucrative product
of the paper industry. Through an intricate combination of technical
refinements and high caliber artwork involving printing, coloring,
and embossing, the medium was upgraded from plain cardboard into
valuable picture postcards. Also, as a consequence of the introduction
of novel materials such as superior ink, glitter, feather, fine
fabrics and pearls, and even fragrances, the medium came to provide
a multi-coded stimulus for private communication. Semantically enriched
with several sensual and symbolic layers of meaning, each single
card opened up a small playground, where image and text interacted
to created private messages. A perpetuum mobile of social communication
had begun. The industry's new found ability to reproduce, on cardboard,
sparkling details of real places and envisioned dreams gave people
of any social level, age group, or gender, a new norm for maintaining
or transforming their social network. Felicitations – seasonal
greetings or congratulations upon personal success – were
conveyed, as were spontaneous gestures of friendship. The significance
of the postcard habit became such that the unexplained absence of
an anticipated card caused disappointment and implied rejection.
Readily recognized and accepted, postcards continued to develop
in their role as carriers of friendly greetings. Then, with deliberate
ambiguity, affectionate tidbits of the amorous sort subtly and gradually
slipped into the mix. On the cards' iconic level, an inventory of
accustomed symbols of emotional closeness (e.g. hearts, doves, rings,
cupids, and floral arabesques) advertized either way the cordial
rapport between sender and receiver as either friendship or love.
Likewise, the writer could use humor and skill in the verbal message
to withhold from the unauthorized reader whether those hugs and
kisses to the dear she-addressee were sent by a suitor or by her
best female friend.
Lovecards unbound
It stands to reason that lovers waived standard epistolary etiquette
and
approached the medium playfully and impulsively. Love cards were
exchanged in sequels of small verbal units sometimes more than twice
a day (see figure 3), which parallels to our current use of short
and multimedia message services. Abbreviated style, characteristic
of both private SMS and postcard communication, is clearly demonstrated
by a piece of correspondence (Fig.1), which was distributed within
Berlin in 1905:
Fig. 1 "Heartfelt greetings to my sweet mouse. / Yours / C[arl]chen.
/ Berlin 03/21/1905."
Although this card’s design suggests a hand written letter
in narrow line spacing, the actual message dispenses with lengthy
content and follows a common pattern of three lines (1.2 - 4), which
corresponds to a typical closing frame of a private letter. In large
fonts and wide spacing, this pencil script joins with the prefabricated
text (1.1; bold, A.H.) to one bicoded message unit, which will be
referred to as the postcard
communiqué:
(1) 1 Meiner süßen Maus einen herzlichen Gruß
2 Dein
3 C'chen
4 Berlin 21/3.05.
The printed text in this verbal unit, which purports to be an intimate
greeting-card but is not confined specifically to a love relationship,
sets the stage on which the sender-text provides deictic references
to transform this piece of mass media into an individual token of
social contact. Aside from matching the linguistic level, the sender's
text genuinely merges with the typographic and overall visual design
of the printed text into a darling, petite, semiotic creation: The
card's color frame (limited to dove-blue cardboard, white ink, red
for the two rebus signs) provides an aesthetic context for the sender's
pencil gray.
The embossed sensual print and cursive style of font strategically
mimic sophisticated handwriting. The two pictorial rebus signs create
a unique atmosphere to which the small sender text conforms in his
verbal stylistics (e.g. ellipsis of verb; signature consisting of
morphemic diminutive and apostrophized abbreviation; numerals instead
of words for the month, abbreviated numbers for the year). The possessive
pronouns (the handwritten "deinem", which corresponds
to the printed "meiner") and the underlining of the signature,
which formally echoes the ornate line of the printed text, suggest
balance between first and second person singular and indicate a
close relationship. Here, the gesture of devotion symbolized by
the handwritten pronoun not only claims special emphasis in its
relation to the overall length of the text, it also appears framed
and as a central part of the verbal eye-catch. Hence, with the grammatical
diminutive and its semantics of affection worked out to the last
detail, the communiqué semiotically becomes a super-sign
of affectionate form.
Such creative play of charming miniature centered around the element
of
signature constitutes a primary basis for love discourse enacted
through postcards. The signature, a marker of completion, can signify
the gesture of silently assenting to the message of the card. As
is still true today, each deployed version of signature was acknowledged
to indicate a certain degree of emotional closeness, the common
signature scale running from anonymous to surname to first name
to nicknames with various forms of abbreviations and combinations
to the ultimately intimate no-name.
However, forms of signature back then primarily needed to reflect
the state of progress that was officially accepted for this couple
within the social community.
Especially in the heyday of picture postcards, when a vast majority
of
intricately designed cards were sent to be collected in albums,
the element of signature turned the card into a designated present.
As exemplified in figure 2, such cards consisted of a typical patchwork
pattern, which would spell out the love message appealingly, demanding
as little as the sender's consenting signature:
Fig. 2 The whole visible world echoes greetings of love.
Following the standard visual design of a geographic panorama postcard,
this card (Fig. 2) shows a private resort against the backdrop of
an unlimited horizon, illustrating the concept of distance and,
by extension, 'here' vs. 'there' and 'addresser' vs. 'addressee'.
Its warm sepia colors combine – in a module like manner –
common elements of the "Greetings-from" card (Gruß-aus-Karte)
with ornamented frame-like elements and symbols (untouched nature
and chapel, sailboat with white canvas). The four-lined verse (2),
which becomes the basic verbal element of love card design, refers
to and explains the pictorial message, describing the visible world
as an advocate to love. The lyrical "I" in the printed
verse fulfills the sender's intention of greeting the beloved addressee:
(2) 1 Es klingt aus Wellen und Wogen,
2 Lacht aus dem Sonnenschein,
3 kommt mit dem Schifflein gezogen,
4 Der Gruß: "Ich denke Dein!
Applying a close to word-to-word translation the verse reads: "the
greetings: 'I am thinking of you' echoes from the sound of small
and big waves, appears as a smile of the shining sun and comes along
as the carriage of a little sailboat. Three word affirmations, similar
to the "thinking of you" phrase (2.4), which in figure
2 was particularly emphasized by the sender's underlining, make
up the key message of love postcards. The medium's manufactured
emotive atmosphere provides the means to declare, repeatedly and
anew, unaltered emotions between separated lovers. "Bist Du
mir treu" (are you faithful), "Ich bin Dein" (I am
yours) are examples of such question and answer games that were
favorably played by series (Fig.3a–3d):
Fig. 3a–d. Within one day the she-addressee,
Miss Kätchen, received a gesture of greeting subdivided and
expanding across one day, being tied to morning, mid-day, evening,
and night as referential points of devotional acknowledgment.
This series from 1899 performs a spoken greeting in the form of
a written one. Including a compliment to the postal-service, the
verse of card 3a uses the postcard as a substitute for face-to-face
contact: "'Guten Morgen!' aus der Ferne / Ach wie brächt
ich's selber gerne / Doch die Post wird's treu besorgen: / 'Guten
Morgen!'" ("Good morning" from afar. Ahh, I would
just love to deliver these greetings to you in person, but I am
sure, the post will do it just as well: "Good morning!")
As demonstrated, a particular tradition of love card writing was
generated by fixing and emulating the language of the desired greetings.
This language consisted of a set of small versed citations, formulaic
phrases and stereotypical visuals, which served to manifest a core
meaning using slightly altered signifiers (fig.4).
|
|
Fig.4 a + b Happy Easter on love cards. Two variations
of the Happy Easter theme: "Herzlichen Ostergruß",
"Fröhliche Ostern!"
Taking advantage of this manufactured authority of common text,
which the printed word and the graphics exhibited naturally and
which the portrayed topics acquired by simple rule of repetition,
senders subscribed to this postcard design and pattern wholeheartedly
(Fig. 5).
Fig.5 To establish a momentum of intermediary contact before the
upcoming face-to-face visit, this love card was deployed by a female
sender.
"Ewig Dein" (yours forever) is presented as a noble motto
of faithful avowal, whereas unambiguous symbols (roses, tulips,
carnations) and common symbolic color (red, gold) are put into place
to bring the verbal meaning to its maximum effect. The female sender
adopts this technique of unmistakable emphasis, and shapes her perfect
expression of love by bringing the language of the postcard itself
to perfection: she expands on the motto by adding a version of a
rhymed verse (5), which might just as well have been part of the
printed text. Drawing on the symbolic meaning of flowers, this popular
folk verse declares the exceptional endurance of love that holds
together the lyrical "I" and the addressee:
(5) 1 Rosen Tulpen Nelken
2 Alle Blümlein welken
3 Marmor und Eisen bricht
4 Aber unsere Liebe nicht.2
Likewise, in the space for the verbal message on the reverse side,
her words express thanks to the reader for the card he had sent
to her, and express hope that her most preciously loved sweetheart
may be as safe and sound as she is. These warm remarks are followed
by a farewell and at last by the typical ending of hugs and kisses
from his ever loving and forever loyal Elise.3 This two-sided message
further implies perfect love by addressing the only two concepts
of time that lovers find relevant: the present moment of fulfillment,
and the state of never-ending eternity joined into one semantic
entity of undivided love. The handwritten note documents some present
moment of situational and mental contact, and the overleaf slogan
"Yours forever" claims time-transcending validity.
In contrast to perfecting postcard language by means of suchintertextual
citing mode, the sender-text of figure 6 explicitly certifies the
content of the printed message to be perfect:
Fig. 6 Bicoded love card design of 1942 marked as veritably fitting
the communicative needs of the male sender.
The graphics (fig. 6) consist of a clever comic-style arrangement,
with the thought bubble being removed from the picture and placed
as a subtitle to the photograph, leaving it to the specific user
of the card to determine whether the male or female gets connected
with the lyrical voice of the printed thought.
(6) 1 Junges Glück!
2 Schau ich Dich an, so sieht das Leben aus
3 Schön und bunt wie der Blumenstrauß.
The expressive noun phrase (6.1, young and blossoming happiness
of love) can alternatively be interpreted as the thematic title
of the picture or as an emphatic invocation of the addressee. Additionally,
due to its elliptical style and the use of definite articles, the
text itself serves to decode the picture as much as to provide adulation:
"looking at you makes the world appear as beautiful and colorful
as this bouquet of flowers."
The male sender attributes iconic quality to these lines of praise,
equating the verse with his very thoughts and feelings:
4 Dieser Spruch stimmt haargenau auf
5 das, was ich nur denke und fühle,
6 Elise.
His comment, which tenderly ends by using the addressee's name (6.6),
perfectly matches the first line of the printed verse (6.1) in style,
and provides further emphasis to positively denote the addressee.
Limitations
Although the love card became an indispensable means to communicate
with the beloved partner, this bonding ritual was not completely
left to the lover's discretion. Societal restrictions held great
sway. As Peter Gay (1986: 3) poignantly put it: "Acceptable
paths to love were plainly marked and heavily guarded."4 To
reconstruct some of the basic principles governing the normative
rules of middle class conduct, the picture postcard of figure 7
shall be worth our attention:
Fig.7 Caricature card of 1905 used in a teasing man-to-man-correspondence.
This caricature dramatizes social convention, lover's interaction,
and the popular topic of the coy male suitor. In the salon of private
homes, one of the designated areas for courting activity, interaction
conforms to accepted roles (i.e. female responsiveness, initiative
of male, obligatory presence of a third party of paternal authority).
The distance between the couple, marked as artificial separation,
follows the rule of restrained intimacy which required, prior to
engagement, that the woman be verbally addressed with the formal
version of her name. At large, these norms implied that each interaction
should signify commitment, show rational character, and include
modest limitations of length and frequency in writing and conversations.
The picture addresses these issues by contrasting mediated and unmediated
discourse. Paper, as the vehicle for language, appears in its central
vertical axis: first, the unfolded newspaper (symbol of common public
interest, serving as a prop for the occupied male mind), secondly,
the closed book (symbolizing the female's realm of a private home),
and thirdly, the small note deployed as billet-doux (referring to
intimate verbal intercourse and the medium of postcard). Within
this hierarchical order of paper media, the small note located in
the foreground is particularly emphasized. It is part of both the
vertical and the horizontal axis, clearly indicating the propriety
of the postcard. Indeed the postcard, during the first phase of
acquaintance, carried the advantage of private contact without the
secretiveness of a sealed letter. By adapting the pattern of general
greeting cards, visually as much as verbally, the standard card
from a suitor passed the critical eye of family sentries as an innocuous
gesture of politeness. Images of seasonal illustrations, scenes
of photo realism, and reproduction of pieces of art strategically
kept its denotations to the realm of generic postcard topics; and
explicit greetings to the "werten Eltern und lieben Geschwistern"
(much esteemed parents and dear brothers and sisters) made the tacit
claim that the cards were open to public inspection.
In the everyday discourse between lovers, postcard messages conformed
strictly to the traditional system of accepted morals. Favorite
pictorial expressions of mass produced cards were sent as legitimate
samples of lovers' individual values and fantasies of private happiness.
Popular images of undisturbed togetherness, chosen by both women
and men, featured scenes illustrating rapturous mutual attention
through gesture, gaze and talk. Such scenes were located on open
green or some hidden bench surrounded by blue sky. Cards chosen
by men at a later stage of relationship unmistakably portrayed personal
concepts about their future wives (see fig. 8ad):
Such cards with a message of scenic harmony were
frequently adopted to approach the addressee tenderly – either
to smooth over a previous incident of disagreement, or to visually
forecast future fulfillment in compensation for the present moment
of want.
Double voiced
Love cards aim for ultimate togetherness, but vital discourse also
includes mystifying and controversial forces. Due to the ambivalent
potential of visual language, love cards became popular devises
to play out guessing games. Aside from the surplus of pleasure associated
with the riddled sign, enigmatic greetings affect intimacy because
those who are involved decode the message in light of the exclusively
shared presuppositions of their history. It may also be, contrary
to the romantic mode of intimated conspiracy, that encrypting techniques
were applied as a precautionary approach. The following examples
demonstrate different forms of creative mystery as a substantial
feature of love card language.
To substitute names was a popular strategy, which can be depicted
by a
message of five female senders (9). Their hand written text consists
purely of a list containing a possibly identifying reference to
each sender. Instead of names, periphrastic signatures were used.
The message (9) translates to: "affectionate greetings and
a kiss / sends / a silent female admirer / likewise: an even more
silent / female admirer, / a through and through silent female admirer,
/ a truly silent female admirer / an ardent female admirer":
(9) [I] 1 Herzlichen Gruß und Kuß
2 sendet
3 eine stille Verehrerin,
[II] 4 desgleichen: Eine noch stillere
5 Verehrerin,
[III] 6 Eine ganz stille Verehrerin
[IV] 7 Eine wirklich stille Verehrerin
[V] 8 Eine glühende Verehererin [sic, A.H.]
At first glance these signatures can be read according to the common
lexicon of that time, as manifestations of traditional female ethos.
Yet this position of introverted sensation takes on a different
meaning when viewed in context of the image of the selected postcard
(Fig. 9).
Fig. 9 Referentially, the visual theme of this card provides the
primary information of the whole communiqué. It functions
as a note of cultural event referring to the debut performance of
an operetta by Franz Lehár in Munich.
While it was rather unusual for women to initiate a contact to a
male address, other than their relatives, the selection of this
card for correspondence, taken by itself, could be interpreted as
a fully decent and stereotypical act. The culture of theater was
explicitly declared topic number one for conversations between young
middle-classed men and women. And yet, writing apparently innocent
greetings related to the topic of the emancipated wife seems to
challenge the traditional role of woman. It evokes an act of modern
wishful self-promotion by associating each female writer with the
world of actresses – with glamorous successes and their masquerade
of fictitious seduction.
The communiqué's peculiar quality of double-voiced message
is generated by oscillating between gestures towards the male addressee,
enacted in the sender text, and turning away from him, envisioned
in the printed message.
Creative playing off conventional form, as this communiqué
exemplified, is another form of flirting.6 It worked in its swaying
and noncommittal character against the officially designated routines
of committed behavior. Typically these cards were circulated during
social gatherings of adolescent peer groups such as bicycle clubs
and fraternities, and signatures were accumulated from everyone
present in order to pull together one collective hello to the absent
addressee. Such multi-voiced postcards were successfully turned
into love cards when addressees took up this hide-and-seek-play
and decoded one signature as indicating more meaning than the rest
of the names.
This strategy of concealing identity by carefully blending one's
message with the standards of postcard language might have addressed
the individual need of the coy lover, who preferred subdued ways
of communicating love. This type of sender, who played his love
cards like a piker with much precaution, liked to have the imprinted
message of his cards indicate love vaguely, by keeping his own hand
writing physically and content wise at a distance to the illustrated
love scene. In general, adolescent multi-voiced greetings on cards
seem to have been closely related to a specific rule of nineteenth
century middle class conduct, according to which teenagers were
expected to approach a member of the opposite sex within small groups
only.
However overtly ambiguous, cards of the early stages of a relationship
nevertheless contained small traces of discrete meaning on close
inspection, whether placed there on purpose or unintended. Thus
it was left to the addressed reader to decide whether the orthographic
peculiarity of the last female sender of the operetta card (9.5)
was meant as a jocular wordplay or rather subconsciously triggered
as a Freudian slip. Her conflating the two key words of the card
– the noun Verehrerin (agency of female admirer) and the noun:
Ehe (institution of marriage) – into her version of "Verehererin"
fuels ambivalent meaning. On one hand it, this version with an additional
e-vowel can be interpreted to imitate a stressed pronunciation of
the regular lexical form as to indicate a higher degree of adoration.
On the other it reads like the writer's wishful path of proceeding
from admiration to matrimony.
Much different yet is the strategy of camouflaged message that was
adopted on a card of 1904. Its printed text reads like an instruction
manual about indicating love on postcards. It appears to perform
a secret semiotic maneuver which, if intercepted, no one else would
be able to decipher: "Willst du dein Herz mir schenken, / So
fang es heimlich an / Dass unser Beider Denken, / Niemand errathen
kann" (if you want to devote your heart to me, do it secretly.
No one shall decipher our intimate thoughts.)
The male sender follows suit and takes advantage of the card's illustration,
which depicts the medieval romantic cliché of a noble suitor
carefully watching a sleeping beauty who was resting on a bench
after gathering pink rose blossoms. This pictorial face-to-face-encounter
equally compares with the photographic card in figure 6 and allows
for the small verbal pencil message well hidden in the pleats of
the lady's dress: "Mittwoch auf Wiedersehen" (seeing you
again Wednesday). This embedded information about an upcoming tête-à-tête
connects to the card's pictorial message of a meeting at a romantic
site. Further intricacies of the art of concealing an intimate message
in a seemingly innocuous carrier are exemplified in the use of cards
depicted in figure 10a and b.
|
|
Fig. 10 To address thoughtfulness and comfort, these
two cards were sent – two days in a row – by a young
man in 1904 within a small town to his female friend, who was sick
in bed.
Manifestations of young female health and attractiveness, these
two serial cards of baroque beauty seem to unmistakably allude to
the physical condition and persona of the addressee; with each of
the pictorial elements – the girl dressed in her morning gown
with loose hair, rosebuds, open décolleté –
indicating not only the sender's best wishes for recovery but also
his adoration and desire. The similarity between the two visual
images is reflected by the sender's verbal messages. Both texts
constituted polite greetings with the element of formal address.
The message of the second day (10b) in an almost literal translation
reads: "how is it going today, Miss Babettchen??? Much better,
for sure! Soon you will be able to walk around, won't you? Be greeted
most affectionately from Rudolf".
(10b) 1 Wie geht es heut, Frl.
2 Babettchen??? Doch
3 sicher besser! Nicht
4 wahr, Sie können
5 bald wieder aufstehn?
6 Seien Sie herzlichst
7 gekrüßet [sic, A.H.] von
8 Rudolf
Aside from orthographic markers that indicate informal spoken language,
one orthographic peculiarity of (10b.7) stands out. As a marked
substitute for the unmarked version of the past participle gegrüßt
the applied version "gekrüßet" (l0.7) indicates
elaborate, antiquated style and thus shows that two discourses are
active on this card (i.e. formal register of young suitor plus informal
register of old acquaintance). What seems to be yet more significant
is the substitution of the regular consonant (voiced plosive g to
voiceless k). This alteration of letter might have been caused by
dialectic interference7 but, read as a consolidation of the verb
grüßen (to send greetings) and the verb küssen (to
kiss), it suggests that the formal greetings contain some secret
kisses. This conspicuous letter appears to be akin to another secret
sign on this card: next to the stamp, a small penciled cross points
to the secret note underneath the stamp. There the message was constituted,
much to the contrary of the "main" text, by intimate address,
explicit kisses and an affectionate form of signature.
Although at risk that their message would be detected and fined
by the postal institution, lovers frequently used this space underneath
the stamp just as they would use the main space for the sender's
message: to exchange kisses and cite verses, to express their desire
or frustration, or to set up the next secret date. As further embellishment
in the address section, the stamp itself symbolized a certain message
of devotion depending on its angular position.[8] Although carrying
the typical vagueness of postcard signifiers in general, the stamp
applied in figure 11, being specifically highlighted by two exclamation
marks, denies any accidental meaning, and adds yet another touch
to the many genuine forms of verbal caress that were spread throughout
the sender's text and address section.
Fig. 11 The stamp as an additional sign of affection addressed to:
"My sweet little bride" in 1900.
Undoubtedly, gestures of love can be subtly and creatively worked
into any medium, including seemingly innocuous postcards. Writers
were free to encrypt their greetings to add some secret or tender
touch. For example, a writer might use numerals or the Morse code
on a Christmas card to stretch the scope of common season’s
greetings. Levels of secrecy were dependent on the stage of the
relationship and its specific predicaments and constraints.
Conclusion
The postcard, in the pre-telephone era, certainly did not replace
the elaborate medium of the love letter, but it could not be discredited
as a medium of laconic and uninspired communication either. Love
card writing grew as a tradition despite being open to public scrutiny,
and a whole new realm was opened with its own democratic rules.
Small private messages, no longer negatively connoted, began their
career as much sought after charming and affectionate tidbits. By
utilizing the advances of the paper industry and by taking a more
or less courageous and creative spin on prefabricated cards, standard
modes of communicating affection were turned into unique signs of
endearment without requiring unreasonable amounts of time, money
and artistic skill.
Using a variety of coded signs to affirm the message of the heart,
the love card culture of the turn of the twentieth century set the
stage for the various electronic modes of multi-coded affectionate
short messaging of today. Genuinely new standards of affectionate
communication rose to the social surface, actively affirming the
conceptual changes of love that were emerging. Moves of mutual give
and take, either dramatically dynamic or nearly imperceptible challenged
the gender fixed concept of communicative action and reaction. Whether
love messages be inscribed on cardboard, circa 1900, or transmitted
electronically, circa 2000, the enduring popularity of this type
of dialogue affirms that the discourse of the heart continues to
be a two-sided matter: a mysterious twist between expression and
concealment, and a tricky compromise between traditional concepts
of showing of affection and modern ways – apt and timely,
reaffirming and sparkling new, extraordinarily individualistic,
and yet not awkward but commonly understood and accepted.
Notes
[1] First issued by the Austro-Ungarian monarchy on October 1, 1869,
other countries followed. The medium was e.g. officially accepted
in Great Britain, Switzerland (1870); Denmark, the Netherlands,
(1871);France, Russia (1872); Spain, the USA (1873), Italy (1874),
etc.
[2] As stated in the verse: Roses, tulips, carnations and the rest
of flowers are bound to wither away and, likewise to this fate of
natural beauty, the solid entities of marble and iron are breakable
by some natural
forces, but the couple's love would neither be fading nor be broken.
[3] "Mein innigstgeliebter / habe Deine liebe / Karte erhalten.
/ Hoffentlich bist Du noch gesund und / munter was ich auch / noch
bin. Lebe wohl / bis Sonntag. / Herzlichen Gruß. und Kuß
von D.[einer] D.[ich] ewig tr[eu] l.[liebenden] Elise".
[4] Gay, Peter (1986): The Bourgois Experience. Victoria to Freud.
Volume II. The Tender Passion. New York: Oxford University Press.
[5] Lehár's operetta "Die Juxheirat" ("The
Mock Marriage") had its debut performance in Austria, Theater
an der Wien in 1904, December 12.
[6] In Germany flirt first appeared as a dictionary entry in the
Meyer's Conversationslexikon in 1894.
[7] Considering that within the region in which this card was sent,
speakers frequently substituted the voiceless plosives by voiced
ones, this particular word might be a hypercorrection phenomenon,
triggered by the formal version of the word.
[8] The specific meaning of each stamp's positioning was part of
the couple's individual love code. Due to the many different and
changing interpretations of love stamp language, which over time
were also illustrated in several inexpensive booklets, from today's
perspective the single stamp-messages offers several readings. The
depicted angle in fig. 17 can be interpreted, e.g. as "I am
longing for you", "I won't tell and my lips are sealed"
(around 1900); "please, would you pick me up" (1902);
or "are you really faithful" (around 1930).
Images
Cards are from the author's collection, except Fig. 6 (collection
of Eva Herold, Coburg) and Fig. 3, 9 (collection of Joachim Schlotterbeck,
Würzburg).
Fig. 1: 21.3.1905 to: Fräulein Emmy M., Elberfeld from: C'chen,
Berlin.
Fig. 2: 4.6.1901 to: Hochwohlg. Fräulein Lotte von K, Austria.
from: Adolf.
Fig. 3 a – 3 d: 5.9.1899 to: Kätchen B., Bamberg, from:
F. Nüsslein, Bamberg.
Fig. 4 a: 28.3.1918 to: Gussy, from: "Deinem Dich heiß
lb Bräutchen Ilse".
Fig. 4 b: 2.4.1920 to: Frl. Mari Sch., Retzbach, from: Luise, Aschaffenburg.
Fig. 5: 7.12.1906 to: Herrn Ernst R., Oberdallendorf, from: Elise,
Obercassel.
Fig. 6: 8.5.1942 to: Frl. Elise B, Nürnberg, from:"Dein
Wildfang", Kirchenlamitz.
Fig. 7: 14.1.1905 to: Eduard K., Ökonom, Bad Kissingen, from:
Simon F.
Fig. 8 a: 20.12.1909 to: Fräulein Anna O., Karlsruhe from:
Franz, Gengenbach.
Fig. 8 b: 20.7.19012 to: Fräulein Anna O., Karlsruhe, from:
Franz, Lörrach.
Fig. 8 c + d: 11./25.11.1909 to: Frl. Bella S., Frankfurt, from:
Richard, Frankfurt.
Fig. 9: 20.7.1905 to: Herrn Andreas N., Munich from: 4 female sender,
München.
Fig. 10a + b: 14./15.5.1907 to: Fräulein Babettchen H. , Fulda,
from: Rudolf, Fulda.
Fig.11: 21.5.1900 to: "meine Kleine süße Braut".
from: "Deinem Dich liebenden Willi."
|