Literary criticism has failed to do justice to the creative aspect of letters. The correspondence of Lamb and Keats are testament to this. Typically, these texts have been appropriated by critics as supplemental, biographical material. This thesis addresses this shortcoming. It analyses the familiar-letters of these writers and attempts to answer this question: how can we understand these letters as stand-alone literary texts? Absence defines the situation of the letter-writer; this thesis posits that the creativity ofletters is constituted by the distinctive ways in which letter-writers seek to overcome this situation. Chapters on Lamb and Keats demonstrate four permutations of the form's creativity. Imaginative sympathies and sensibility are found at the heart of their creative processes, as they attempt to imagine recipients and themselves from these perspectives. These uses of sensibility and sympathy suggest new ways in which both concepts can be read; they offer us a new insight into the relationship between moral concepts and literary creativity. David Hume, Joseph Priestley, David Hartley and, particularly, Adam Smith provide the conceptual basis for my investigation. In doing so, this thesis develops our understanding of the continuity between empiricist conceptions of sympathy and identity and Romantic- period creativity. It also contributes to the evolving picture of creativity in the wider period by showing how it can be fundamentally interpersonal, interactive, and inspired by isolation and embattlement. Through its focus on sympathy as a means of understanding the unique conditions, challenges and creativity of the form this study offers a suggestive point of origin for future investigations into the creative nature of letters.

This thesis is a selective and annotated edition of 168 of the 2127 extant letters by Caroline Elizabeth Norton currently known to be available in both the public and private domain, which have been collected and transcribed for the project. The selection includes both the first extant letter, dated 28 July [1828] and the last, written on 10 June 1877, five days before her death. Those of Caroline Norton’s letters already published in an annotated edition have not been included in the selection. The letters are grouped chronologically into five chapters, each representing approximately a decade of the author’s life. Each chapter is preceded by a lengthy commentary outlining the key historical and political events of each period and providing a thematic analysis of how the letters, including the residual 92% of correspondence not selected for the edition, comment on aspects of Caroline Norton’s life, beliefs, work, family, relationships and society. In particular the discussion will focus on how the letters challenge existing notions in these areas and reflect on comparably under-investigated or almost entirely non-researched biographical topics, such as the epistolary strategy Caroline Norton employed to secure the Infant Custody Act, her views on literature and other writers, her health, and the nature of her relationships with her family, particularly her son Brinsley, and other key individuals in her life, such as Mary Shelley, Edward Trelawny, Lord Melbourne and Sidney Herbert. The five chapters are prefaced by an introduction that initially summarises Caroline Norton’s significance and biography. This is followed by a literary review, discussions of how my research relates to her place in nineteenth-century literature and to the literature of epistolary studies and a summary of the principal findings of this thesis. The main body of the thesis is followed by a bibliographical appendix, the methodology adopted is set out a second appendix, while a third contains sample reproductions of the manuscripts of four letters with accompanying transcripts.

This thesis is a broadly chronological study of Samuel Richardson’s correspondence, from his early career as a novelist in the 1740s through to his death in 1761. It argues that Richardson’s sustained concern with the aesthetics and ethics of writing letters was central to his conception of authorship and its relation to publicity. It contends that the form and content of Richardson’s letters interact with his novels in ways that are more pervasive than has been previously acknowledged in Richardson studies; I read letters as an integral part of his literary oeuvre, not merely an adjunct to it. The thesis uses manuscripts of Richardson’s correspondence in archives in both Britain and America, many of which are unpublished. Chapter One examines the development of a familiar epistolary prose style in Richardson’s early works, particularly his first novel Pamela (1740) and its sequel (1741). It focuses on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in the use of the familiar letter in fiction of this period. Chapter Two is, in part, a case study of Richardson’s letters with his most significant correspondent, Lady Bradshaigh, about Clarissa (1747-8), and links their letters to the development of a quasi-autobiographical mode of writing in his last surviving piece of fiction, ‘The History of Mrs Beaumont’. Chapter Three traces how Richardson used correspondence to encourage and promote women’s writing, both in manuscript and print. Chapter Four examines Richardson’s correspondence with men and his attempt to reformulate literary manliness as a moral virtue in Sir Charles Grandison (1753-4). Chapter Five extends these aesthetic and moral debates to Richardson’s own editing of his correspondence, using manuscript evidence and exchanges he had concerning the ethics of publishing his letters during his lifetime. The Conclusion discusses the implications of these examples for the future study of the author as correspondent.

No description available.

The Caribbean islands have been distinguished by mass migratory patterns and diasporic communities that have moved into and out of the region; as a consequence, the genre of the letter has been an important one to the culture and has provided a template for many creative works. This dissertation is the first major study on West Indian epistolary practices: personal letters, emails, verse epistles, epistolary novels, letters to editors, etc. It focuses on a contemporary period – from the 1930s to the present, and on examples that have come out of Jamaica. The dissertation offers both close-readings on a range of epistolary texts and theoretical frameworks in which to consider them and some of the ways in which Caribbean people have been addressing themselves to each other, and to the wider world. My first chapter looks at the non-fictional letters of Sir Alexander Bustamante and Sir Vidia Naipaul. It reflects on the ways in which the public personas of these two men had been created and manipulated through their public and private letters. My second chapter tries to expand a critical project which has been satisfied to simply place contemporary epistolary fiction within an eighteenth century genealogy. I propose another conversation which understands recent examples of West Indian epistolary fiction within their contemporary cultures. My third chapter looks at examples of Jamaican verse epistles and considers how three poets – Lorna Goodison, James Berry and Louise Bennett – have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to create an epistolary voice that is both literary and oral. My fourth chapter looks at the popular Jamaican newspaper advice column, Dear Pastor. It considers the ways in which evangelical Christianity has impacted on the construction of a West Indian epistolary voice and consequently the shape of a West Indian public sphere. My final chapter considers how technology has changed epistolography; specifically how the email, Facebook messages, and tweets have both transformed and preserved the letter. I end with a presentation of a personal corpus of emails titled The Cold Onion Chronicles with some reflections on remediation of epistolary forms.

This thesis analyses letters and other archival material associated with Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) and her network(s) to conceptualise and theorise aspects of "letterness" and networks. Its premise is that such qualitative micro-level analysis of letters and other historical documents can contribute effectively to contemporary thinking about both epistolarity and social networks and their analysis. Using the existing literatures on Schreiner, epistolarity and social network analysis as a starting point, the analysis of letters and other relevant archival material is used to inform the setting of analytical boundaries. Then five examples of Schreiner-related networks – the Lytton to Carpenter letters, the Great War letters to Aletta Jacobs, letters of the Men and Women‟s Club, women‟s letters to Jan Smuts, and letters in the Schreiner-Hemming family collection - are analysed to demonstrate the validity of the premise and to contribute in an innovative and in-depth way to conceptual and theoretical ideas in the field. In doing so, the thesis offers an in-depth analysis of letters and networks in a variety of historical social contexts, identifying key features within each network and exploring whether these are case-specific or generalizable in theoretical terms. This thesis argues that many existing concepts such as those of reciprocity, brokering, bridging, gatekeeping and dyads can be teased out in an analytically helpful way by using letters to reveal the variations and nuances of these concepts in micro-levels interactions. It also considers network size, arguing that existing assessments of this based on frequency of contact, emotional intensity and time since last contact are not in fact particularly important in relation to the analysis of these networks and their epistolary communications. Rather, it is what happens in networks and the letters associated with them, with network members using and deploying their letter-writing in strategic and instrumentally ways. The key arguments made by the thesis concerning letters and networks are: that the size of a network is important but not deterministic; that the balance of reciprocity in letter exchanges and correspondence is highly complex, with this emergent through letter-exchanges, letter content and also enclosures of different kinds; that the purpose of a network and the existence of central figures within it creates propulsions and constraints; that brokering is neither necessarily positive nor always proactive action; that the complex nature of interpersonal ties and how these change over time affects both letters and networks; that letters and their writers can be future-orientated rather than retrospectively focused; and, that this orientation towards the future can influence decisions concerning the retention and archivisation of letters - a fundamental issue in epistolary research - and subsequently what can be gleaned from them concerning networks.

Sanjoy K. Mitter and Pal Toldalagi. / Bibliography: leaf 7. / Grant no. AFOSR 77-3281

This thesis focuses on epistolary theory in early modern England. There are a few studies of Elizabethan and Jacobean letter-writing manuals to date, though scholars typically use chronological analyses of instructional texts printed between 1568-1640. However, the methodology of this dissertation departs considerably from earlier studies. Rather than study many texts chronologically, I focus on one: Angel Day’s The English Secretary. Day’s manual, printed nine times in fifty years, was the most popular of its time. I use these editions– many of them heavily revised – to trace developments of epistolary theory. This approach necessitates a two-part methodology: bibliographical analysis and textual criticism. Before examining The English Secretary as a letter-writing text, I take up the manual, and its nine editions, using principles of bibliography to locate the revisions that Day made to his manual. Once I locate his revisions, I use textual analysis to determine their signification. In so doing, I reappraise the critical consensus about Day’s manual. It reveals that Day, typically cast as a proto-epistolary novelist or pre-Richardson Richardson, did not write as a literary author. Rather, he wrote in turns as a government servant and professional – the approved roles of a writer in Elizabethan literary culture. This newly informs the purpose of Day’s manual, as well as epistolary theory: letter-writing instruction at this time did not preview the emergence of the epistolary novel but maintained a civic, professional, and social function in early modern England.

No description available.

My thesis investigates the dialogic aspects and literary qualities ascribed to letters during the long eighteenth century. In part this involves documenting the correspondence between letters and other genres, such as the novel. Being in correspondence encouraged writers such as Burney and Johnson to express the relationship between sender and recipient in interesting ways. I posit that the letter offered a sophisticated means for writers, including those in Richardson's circle, to represent speech and thought, and mimic (with varying degrees of indirection), that of others. I consider the editorial habits and typographical conventions that governed letter-writing during the period, honing in on Richardson's contributions. I link his claim that letters were written 'to the Moment' with broader tropes of 'occasional' style, and show how this manifests in letters' intricate modulations of tense and person. Chapter 1 details the conventions that prevailed in letters of the period, and their interactions with irony and innovation. I compare convention in the epistolary novels of Smollett and Richardson, and look at closure in the Johnson-Thrale correspondence. Chapter 2 demonstrates that various methods of combining one's voice with others were utilized in letters (such as those of the Burney family), including some that took advantage of the epistolary form and its reputation as 'talking on paper'. Chapter 3 shows the role of mimesis in maintaining the dialogic structure of letters, and links it to contemporary theories of sympathy and sentiment. Chapters 4 and 5 apply the findings about epistolary tradition, polyphony and sentimentalism to the letters of Sterne and Burns. In them, there is a mixture of sentiment and irony, and of individual and 'correspondent' styles. The conclusion discusses the editing of letters, both in situ and in preparation for publication. The twin ideals of spontaneity and sincerity, I conclude, have influenced the way we choose to edit letters in scholarly publications.