Sederi Yearbook 34

Gerd Bayer, “Getting your letters wrong: Early modern Epistolary writing.” SEDERI 34 (2024): 11–30.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34136/sederi.2024.1                                                         Download PDF

Abstract

Letters have played a central role in the development of various forms of literary culture. This article argues that it is through the tropes of miscarriage, deceit, and betrayal that early modern writers and audiences frequently encountered epistolary forms of communication. By looking at various examples from Renaissance and Restoration fiction and literary culture, the article demonstrates that this period was marked by inconsistencies, experimentation, and negotiations. Letters at the time provided writers with an opportunity to showcase the flexibility and malleability of language. The letter, indeed, represented the semantic in-betweenness that links factuality and fiction.

Keywords: Epistolarity, genre, history of the novel, Renaissance fiction, Restoration fiction.

References

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Bayer, Gerd. 2009. “Deceptive Narratives: On Truth and the Epistolary Voice.” Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, no 39, 173–87.

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Bayer, Gerd. 2022. “Letter Matters: Corporeality, Physicality, Epistolarity.” Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660–1700 46 (2) and 47 (1): 121–37.

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