The School of Thinking and Feeling
The Class of Love
2010-11
Research love letters, both new and old, famous and everyday, analyze themes, critically analyze common themes, generational themes, economic/sociological and or political themes and all factors that separates and connect the data and theorize conclusions using information on written expression. Once complete, analyze data and formulate theory.
Love Letters of Statesmen
10-11-30
Love Letters 2
Head of Class
Johanna Gunther
Resident of Love
Interns of Love
Simon
Feyzan
Linda
Egor
Theodora
Leonie
Judith
Matthias
Andrea
Erika
Michael
Corinna
Lisa-Christin
Madlen
Astrid
Severin
Ann-Kathrin
Jasmin
Janick
Sven
Pia
Jelena
Philipp
Lea
Torsten
Sonja
Sharing Love...
Pic: Copy of Love Letter from King Henry the VII to Anne Boleyn
Research Project: Love Letters - Pia
I want to analyze three love letters which are all written by important statesmen. My aim is to find out what impact love has on them and whether love ruled over their decisions and affected their responsibilities as statesmen.
-King Henry VIII to AnneBoleyn in the year 1533
-Napoleon Bonaparte to Joséphine at the 18th of January 1807
Source: Anders, Sabine/Maier, Katharina : Liebesbriefee großer Männer. Marxverlag.
-Otto von Bismarck to Johanna von Puttkammer at the 29th of January 1847
1) Text analysis
•General understanding: situation presented, mood, theme, point of view, who is addressed
•Composition, structure
•Vocabulary: speech-level (It might be difficult to distinguish between old formal language and old informal language. That is a problem because it makes a huge difference. If the men are using military or very technical words they are not on the same level as the women. It could be that they correspond in a personal language and separate work and private life in that way.), word field
•Syntactical structures and figures of speech: sentences, rhetorical means, emphasis, changes
•Emotive language and imagery
•Conclusion of the analysis
2) I am going to use other sources to get a background knowledge of the three men and their women.
Furthermore it could be helpful to research literature about love in general.
-Simonis, Annette/Stauf, Renate (2008): Der Liebesbrief. Schriftkultur und Medienwechsel vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
-Ullrich, Volker (2004): Napoleon: Eine Biographie. 1. Auflage. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
-Lacey, Robert (1972): The life and times of Henry VIII. New York: Cross River Press.
-Engeberg, Waltraud (1998): Das private Leben der Bismarcks. 1. Auflage. Berlin: Siedler.
-Delouche, Frédéric (1993): Illustrated history of Europe. A unique portrait of Europe´s common history. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
3) Questions: Is the men`s rank important in their letters? Could a reader guess that the letters were written by great statesmen? Is there a superiority of the men over the women? Do they focus on love and the women or are they concerned about position and rank? What is the aim of the letter? What is their relationship like, what is i t based upon? What does the letter mean to the men themselves?
One problem is that I do not look at the responses by the women. So I do not know what their writing was like or what they thought about the letters they got.
4) Conclusion: It is not probable that I get the clear picture. Maybe I get completely different answers. That would underline that love is different to everybody, that the men´s characters are not similar and that they did not live at the same time (only Bismarck and Napoleon).