Epistolary Histories

Epistolary Histories PDF Author: Amanda Gilroy
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813919737
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This innovative collection of essays participates in the ongoing debate about the epistolary form, challenging readers to rethink the traditional association between the letter and the private sphere. It also pushes the boundaries of that debate by having the contributors respond to each other within the volume, thus creating a critical community between covers that replicates the dialogic nature of epistolarity itself, with all its dissonances and differences as well as its connections. Focusing mainly on Anglo-American texts from the seventeenth century to the present day, these nine essays and their "postscripts" engage the relationship between epistolary texts and discourses of gender, class, politics, and commodification. Ranging from epistolary histories of Mary Queen of Scots to Turkish travelogues, from the making of the modern middle class and the correspondence of Melville and Hawthorne to new epistolary innovators such as Kathy Acker and Orlan, the contributions are divided into three parts: part 1 addresses the "feminocentric" focus of the letter; part 2, the boundaries between the fictional and the real; and part 3 the ways in which the epistolary genre may help us think more clearly about questions of critical address and discourse that have preoccupied theorists in recent years. In sum, Epistolary Histories is a defining contribution to epistolary studies. Contributors: Nancy Armstrong, Brown University Anne L. Bower, Ohio State University, Marion Clare Brant, King's College, London Amanda Gilroy, University of Groningen Richard Hardack, Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges Linda S. Kauffman, University of Maryland, College Park Donna Landry, Wayne State University Gerald MacLean, Wayne State University Martha Nell Smith, University of Maryland, College Park W. M. Verhoeven, University of Groningen

Epistolary Histories

Epistolary Histories PDF Author: Amanda Gilroy
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813919737
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
This innovative collection of essays participates in the ongoing debate about the epistolary form, challenging readers to rethink the traditional association between the letter and the private sphere. It also pushes the boundaries of that debate by having the contributors respond to each other within the volume, thus creating a critical community between covers that replicates the dialogic nature of epistolarity itself, with all its dissonances and differences as well as its connections. Focusing mainly on Anglo-American texts from the seventeenth century to the present day, these nine essays and their "postscripts" engage the relationship between epistolary texts and discourses of gender, class, politics, and commodification. Ranging from epistolary histories of Mary Queen of Scots to Turkish travelogues, from the making of the modern middle class and the correspondence of Melville and Hawthorne to new epistolary innovators such as Kathy Acker and Orlan, the contributions are divided into three parts: part 1 addresses the "feminocentric" focus of the letter; part 2, the boundaries between the fictional and the real; and part 3 the ways in which the epistolary genre may help us think more clearly about questions of critical address and discourse that have preoccupied theorists in recent years. In sum, Epistolary Histories is a defining contribution to epistolary studies. Contributors: Nancy Armstrong, Brown University Anne L. Bower, Ohio State University, Marion Clare Brant, King's College, London Amanda Gilroy, University of Groningen Richard Hardack, Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges Linda S. Kauffman, University of Maryland, College Park Donna Landry, Wayne State University Gerald MacLean, Wayne State University Martha Nell Smith, University of Maryland, College Park W. M. Verhoeven, University of Groningen

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society PDF Author: Mary Ann Shaffer
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408803313
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The beloved, life-affirming international bestseller which has sold over 5 million copies worldwide - now a major film starring Lily James, Matthew Goode, Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Courtenay and Penelope Wilton To give them hope she must tell their story It's 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer's block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey – a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book – she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books – and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever.

The Epistolary Novel

The Epistolary Novel PDF Author: Joe Bray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134402538
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
The epistolary novel is a form which has been neglected in most accounts of the development of the novel. This book argues that the way that the eighteenth-century epistolary novel represented consciousness had a significant influence on the later novel. Critics have drawn a distinction between the self at the time of writing and the self at the time at which events or emotions were experienced. This book demonstrates that the tensions within consciousness are the result of a continual interaction between the two selves of the letter-writer and charts the oscillation between these two selves in the epistolary novels of, amongst others, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Fanny Burney and Charlotte Smith.

Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 1500-1850

Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 1500-1850 PDF Author: Thomas O. Beebee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521622752
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This book explores epistolary fiction as a major phenomenon across Europe from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century.

Epistolary Practices

Epistolary Practices PDF Author: William Merrill Decker
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807847435
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Letters have long been read as primary sources for biography and history, but their performative, fictive, and textual dimensions have only recently attracted serious notice. In this book, William Merrill Decker examines the place of the personal letter in American popular and literary culture from the colonial to the postmodern period. After offering an overview of the genre, Decker explores epistolary practices that coincide with American experiences of space, settlement, separation, and reunion. He discusses letters written by such well-known and well-educated persons as John Winthrop, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail and John Adams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Clemens, Henry James, and Alice James, but also letters by persons who, except in their correspondence, were not writers at all: indentured servants, New England factory workers, slaves, soldiers, and Western pioneers. Individual chapters explore the letter writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, and Henry Adams_three of America's most ambitious, accomplished, and theoretically astute letter writers. Finally, Decker considers the ongoing transformation of letter writing in the electronic age.

The Epistolary Renaissance

The Epistolary Renaissance PDF Author: Maria Löschnigg
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110582171
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Since the late twentieth century, letters in literature have seen a remarkable renaissance. The prominence of letters in recent fiction is due in part to the rediscovery, by contemporary writers, of letters as an effective tool for rendering aspects of historicity, liminality, marginalization and the expression of subjectivity vis-à-vis an ‘other’; it is also due, however, to the artistically challenging inclusion of the new electronic media of communication into fiction. While studies of epistolary fiction have so far concentrated on the eighteenth century and on thematic concerns, this volume charts the epistolary renaissance in recent literature, entering new territory by also focusing on the aesthetic implications of the epistolary mode. In particular, the essays in this volume illuminate the potential of the epistolary (including digital forms) for rendering contemporary sensitivities. The volume thus offers a comprehensive assessment of letter narratives in contemporary literature. Through its focus on the aesthetic and structural aspects of new epistolary fiction, the inclusion of various narrative forms, and the consideration of both conventional letters and their new digital kindred, The Epistolary Renaissance offers novel insight into a multi-facetted (re)new(ed) genre.

Epistolary Responses

Epistolary Responses PDF Author: Anne Bower
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817358145
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Letters - a most traditional and old-fashioned form of discourse - continue to offer special opportunities for writers and readers in the postmodern era. Bower explores the way letters shape the act of writing and writing as act.

Epistolary Korea

Epistolary Korea PDF Author: JaHyun Kim Haboush
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231519591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
By expanding the definition of "epistle" to include any writing that addresses the intended receiver directly, JaHyun Kim Haboush introduces readers to the rich epistolary practice of Chos?n Korea. The Chos?n dynasty (1392-1910) produced an abundance of epistles, writings that mirror the genres of neighboring countries (especially China) while retaining their own specific historical trajectory. Written in both literary Chinese and vernacular Korean, the writings collected here range from royal public edicts to private letters, a fascinating array that blurs the line between classical and everyday language and the divisions between men and women. Haboush's selections also recast the relationship between epistolography and the concept of public and private space. Haboush groups her epistles according to where they were written and read: public letters, letters to colleagues and friends, social letters, and family letters. Then she arranges them according to occasion: letters on leaving home, deathbed letters, letters of fiction, and letters to the dead. She examines the mechanics of epistles, their communicative space, and their cultural and political meaning. With its wholly unique collection of materials, Epistolary Korea produces more than a vivid chronicle of pre- and early modern Korean life. It breaks new ground in establishing the terms of a distinct, non-European form of epistolography.

Epistolary Selves

Epistolary Selves PDF Author: Rebecca Earle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351939289
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This volume of ten essays discusses the pivotal role that letters have played in social, economic and political history from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The recent scholarly interest in the history of reading has as yet yielded few studies which consider letters as a category of readable material. The contributors to this book seek to redress this oversight, viewing letters as texts which can reveal information, not only about their writers and readers, but about the wider historical context in which they were written. Topics covered include the mercantile letter, diplomatic correspondence, and what these epistolary forms suggest about the rise of a polite, literate culture in the eighteenth century; the experience of immigration from Europe to America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the relationship through the letter; and the working of gender in the epistolary form. Rebecca Earle provides an overview of how the study of letter-writing can open up new avenues of historical as well as literary investigation. This, together with contributions form leading international scholars, makes Epistolary Selves an essential text for those researching the letter genre.

Epistolary Acts

Epistolary Acts PDF Author: Jordan Zweck
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487501005
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In Epistolary Acts, Jordan Zweck examines the presentation of letters in early medieval vernacular literature, including hagiography, prose romance, poetry, and sermons on letters from heaven, moving beyond traditional genre study to offer a radically new way of conceptualizing Anglo-Saxon epistolarity.