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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 Its premise is that such qualitative micro-level analysis of letters and other historical documents can contribute effectively to contemporary thinking about both epistolarity and social networks and their analysis.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.

This dissertation seeks to show that the figure of the female letter-writer in English Renaissance literature, rather than reflecting the culture’s desire to contain, undermine, or destroy the notion of women’s textual production, in fact represents the culture’s desire to imagine and see women as writers. The image of the female letter-writer was sufficiently pervasive both to normalize the idea that real women might properly engage in textual production, and to function as a literary trope which was used to investigate issues beyond gender ideology. “Author of Prodigies” explores representations of women’s epistolary creation in a broad selection of fictional texts, primarily drama. Based on these representations, I argue that the figure of the female letter-writer functioned as a means through which the fragile and epistemologically fraught relationship between the subject and the writing in which she engages was explored. In Chapter One, I focus primarily on the history of early feminist criticism, issues of how letters are related to non-epistolary texts, Renaissance notions of subjectivity and its relationship to gender, and how subjectivity was understood to adhere in epistolary writing. In Chapter Two, I examine texts in which female characters pen letters in their own blood. Blood letters figure the fragility, marginality, and vulnerability associated with self revelation in a context in which female subjectivity was not comfortably acknowledged. Chapter Three features texts that contemplate the fantasy of female characters wooing their beaux by merging epistolary production and metadramatic performances of femininity. These characters use gendered social constraints to their advantage, revealing themselves to be sufficiently skillful to manipulate social and material signs of their marginalized position in order to achieve their personal desires. Chapter Four focuses on male fetishization of women’s intellectual labour through letter-writing, and the ways in which women writers anticipate and manipulate this response. These depictions of women’s mental work are infused with mystery, which is integral to the pleasure of imagining women engaged in letter-writing. However, as the terms of the fetish are being established in these texts they are also in the process of being normalized. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-15 21:08:25.539

This thesis aims essentially at a re-evaluation of the marginalisation that conventional critical assessment makes of Jane Austen's epistolary novella 'Lady Susan' (1794-1795). The consensus within Austen studies, one that has largely been unchanged and unchallenged since the time of the first professional academic accounts of Austen's work (and in turn influenced by the C19 view of the writer) is that 'Lady Susan' is an artistic failure, a regressive step in Austen's stylistic development and, most fundamentally, that its epistolarity is a constraint on the technical progress that Austen appeared to be making in work prior to this, most notably, the unfinished third-person novella "Catharine, or The Bower". The thesis provides a close reading of 'Lady Susan' and of 'Catharine' and in marked opposition to the consensus, concludes that 'Lady Susan' is an emphatic step forward in Austen's stylistic progress, most particularly through the manner in which it establishes a moral framework from within which to develop character and plot, its attainment of incipient narrative voice through a complex use and exploitation of epistolary polyphony (thereby foreshadowing the omniscient third-person narrators of Austen's mature fiction, in addition to its experimentation with a form of free indirect speech) and the markedly plausible realism that is present throughout the novella. Austen's termination of the epistolary section (the novella being concluded in third-person narrative - an ending that was added some time later and which is generally viewed as her own recognition of epistolary limitation), in the view of this thesis, therefore cannot be attributed to stylistic inadequacy or constraint, and obliges other motives to be posited. The thesis then proceeds to move from text into context and assesses the extra-literary factors that may have prompted Austen's abandonment of the epistolary section, according a co-centrality to the character of Catherine that has never before been emphasised in Austen studies and the consequences of which suggest the writer’s political engagement with “the French Question”, and with political concerns in general, at an age that is far earlier than most critics usually accept (‘Lady Susan’ was written when Austen was 19). Beyond the text itself, our close assessment of a broad range of critical views (both on ‘Catharine’ and ‘Lady Susan’) lead us to posit that the critical insistence on the novella’s inferiority and regressiveness, both of which claims we strongly refute through our close reading of the text, in fact corresponds to a determinedly evolutionary manner of understanding novelistic development, on that in turn derives from Ian Watt’s account of the rise of this literary form. In accordance with standard academic procedure, the thesis begins with a critical review—in this case, of epistolary studies— including studies that monographically consider Austen’s work. It also considers the role of Austen’s private correspondence in the broader question of literary epistolarity. The thesis terminates by adding to its conclusion the obligatory outlines of what we deem to be valid and necessary further research into this subject and related issues.

My study seeks to explore the interest that Spanish women authors such as Josefina Aldecoa, Carme Riera, Nuria Amat, Esther Tusquets, Marina Mayoral, Carmen Martín Gaite, and Olga Guirao have taken in the revival of epistolary fiction in recent decades. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century epistolary fiction in Spain was conditioned by social practices and by literary conventions that typically confined its heroines to an amorous plot and women authors to anonymity. I contend that if modern tradition of epistolary practices and other male-discriminatory practices kept women writers silenced or invisible in the Spanish literary world, contemporary women writers sketch themselves back into their texts. Fictional letters function as written self-portraits for them to reflect and tell their own stories, thereby creating a playful mirror effect between the fictional epistolographer and the historical author. By pushing the conventional boundaries of letter writing as a sentimental genre, contemporary women authors take liberty to rewrite female representation and to give the fictional protagonists a new voice and visibility. They revisit the theme of love in epistolary literature to explore refashioned—and often transgressive—discourses on gender, sexuality, and subject identity.

After the American Revolutionary War Hannah Webster Foster wrote a new form of the epistolary novel that was based on the life and death of the poet Elizabeth Whitman. Foster's novel The Coquette performs a type of interiority for its audience that is paradoxically public. This novel fills in the gap of missing female biography and autobiography by using the prevailing conventions of fiction to craft a subversive, political identity for marginalized female citizens.

This paper conducts a critical comparison of the correspondence of Madame de Sévigné, Empress Marie-Thérèse of Austria and Joséphine Bonaparte. These women instruct their daughters through a writerly exchange that implements a remarkably similar use of language that indicates a “performance” of her maternal role, meant to implement a personal or political agenda that requires the daughter’s acknowledgement and reciprocation. This project explores theories of speech acts and subjectivity to conduct a literary analysis of the construction of the maternal figure in a historical context, its representation in the letters of each woman with their daughters, the motivations for a “performance” of the maternal role, and the subsequent characterization, reaction, and liberation of the daughter’s voice.

This thesis investigates the cultural politics of a small group of women through their writing and other activities in 1880s London. Focussed on Olive Schreiner, Eleanor Marx and Amy Levy and the connections they had to one another and to other women, such as Henrietta Frances Lord, Clementina Black and Henrietta Müller, it explores key events in their everyday lives, the writings and texts they produced. It analyses a wide selection of textual sources, re-reading these for small details, intertextual connections and points of disjuncture, to allow for different ways of understanding the mechanics of feminist cultural politics as produced and performed by these interconnected women. Small things in texts can be revealing about such women’s everyday lives and connectedly the cultural politics which underpinned their actions, thus contributing to knowledge about how writing was used strategically and imaginatively to challenge, side-step and overcome oppression and inequality, in these years in London and after. Using the term ‘writing’ in a broad sense to include letters and diaries and other archival sources such as newspaper articles, reviews and manuscript drafts, as well as some selected published work and biographies, the thesis is anchored around four event-driven investigations: Olive Schreiner being accosted by a policeman; the first public performance of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House; the writing of a letter mentioning Eleanor Marx; and, the death of Amy Levy. Relatedly, there are discussions concerning working with historical documents, documenting and archiving the past, researching and representing the past in the present. These investigations allow for the operationalization of a research approach framed by ideas concerning micro, small-scale, everyday life and its qualitative aspects, which together contribute to a re-conceptualisation of a ‘sociology of small things.’ Specifically, it is argued that close and small-scale studies of women’s writing, whether undertaken alone or connected to others, sheds light on the importance of relationship dynamics in connection with writing output, on what writing was produced and what role each text played in larger scale political agendas. Concepts such as palimpsest, liminality and bricolage are interrogated with respect to researching and representing the spatial and temporal interconnectedness of the selected authors and textual sources. And contributions are made to contemporary thinking about epistolarity and social networks, focussing on reciprocity, gift-giving and receiving and notions of ‘letterness,’ along with the defining of boundaries, and the value of determining the nature of ties between women. The thesis also argues that the relationships between intimacy and distance, interiority and exteriority, public and private, are frayed with complicated overlaps.

Este trabalho propõe uma análise de seis livros de contos do autor moçambicano Mia Couto, publicados no período de 1987 a 2004. Fazem parte do corpus as seguintes obras contísticas: Vozes Anoitecidas (1987), Cada Homem é Uma Raça (1990), Estórias Abensonhadas (1994), Contos do Nascer da Terra (1997), Na Berma de Nenhuma Estrada e outros contos (2001) e O Fio das Missangas (2004), ampliando a proposta também para três romances: Vinte e Zinco (1999), A Confissão da Leoa (2012) e Mulheres de Cinzas (2015). A seguinte premissa norteou o trabalho: a escrita como tema na obra do autor pode ser considerada como a porta de entrada para a palavra interdita? Optou-se por ter, como objeto de estudo, a interdição da voz, ou seja, desenvolver um enfoque a partir das personagens que utilizam a escrita para comunicação. O foco foi dado a partir do gênero epistolar (bilhetes, cartas e diários), mas abrindo para outros silenciamentos, como o caso das exiladas da razão. As cartas são objeto de argumentação; exposição da intimidade e documento de foro íntimo. Verificaram-se similitudes e diferenças entre a carta real e a ficcional; elas podem assumir múltiplas características, a saber: conciliadora dos laços familiares; diálogo, monólogo ou solilóquio; preenchimento da solidão; confissão do inconfessável, espaço de contestação, revelação de sentimentos e emoções. Podem ser cartas falsas, de apresentação, de elemento de primeiro contato verbal. Escrevem tanto os alfabetizados como os analfabetos, esses com ajuda de terceiros. As missivas podem ter um destinatário imediato ou direto ou mediato ou indireto; elas conjecturam um diálogo que supõe um remetente, a subjetividade direta (o eu que fala) e um destinatário – a marca de uma alteridade. Nas obras do autor moçambicano, a palavra escrita presentifica-se e é representada por aquele que escreve – o que domina a escrita, a letra. Porém, dominando-a, ela pode também ser questionada, subvertida. Evidenciou-se, neste contexto, por intermédio das obras expostas o silenciamento da voz feminina pela repressão suscitada por meio da instituição patriarcal, social e política. Dialogou-se com críticos literários e estudiosos da literatura africana de língua portuguesa, dentre os quais destacamos: Ana Mafalda Leite, Inocência Mata, Maria Fernanda Afonso, José Pires Laranjeira, Laura Cavalcante Padilha, entre outros. Também houve interlocução com intelectuais africanos como Chinua Achebe, Anthony Kwame Appiah, Nkolo Foé e Achille Mbembe e Franz Fanon, da Martinica. Para dar conta da análise das missivas empregamos Andrée Crabbé Rocha; Michel Foucault; Philippe Lejeune, Phillip Rothwell e Leonor Arfuch. Abordou-se a palavra escrita, porque é por intermédio dela que as personagens subvertem o silenciamento de suas vozes. / This work proposes an analysis of six short story books by the Mozambican author Mia Couto, published between 1987 to 2004. The following works are part of the corpus: Vozes Anoitecidas (1987), Cada Homem é Uma Raça (1990), Estórias Abensonhadas (1994), Contos do Nascer da Terra (1997), Na Berma de Nenhuma Estrada e outros contos (2001) e O Fio das Missangas (2004), extending the proposal also to three novels, namely Vinte e Zinco (1999), A Confissão da Leoa (2012) and Mulheres de Cinzas (2015). The following premise guided the work: can written word as a theme in the author's work be considered as the door to the word interdict? I choose as object of study, the interdiction of the voice, that is, to develop a focus from the characters that use the writing for communication. The focus was given from the epistolary genre (notes, letters and diaries), but increased to other silencers, such as the case of reason exiles. The letters are subject to argument; intimacy exhibition and intimate forum document. There were similarities and differences between real and fictional letters; they can assume multiple characteristics: reconciling family ties; dialogue, monologue or soliloquy; filling the loneliness; confession of the unconfessable, space of contestation, revelation of feelings and emotions. They may be false letters, of presentation, of first element of verbal contact. Both the literate and the illiterate write, this with the help of others. The missives may have an immediate or direct receiver either mediate or indirect receiver, they conjecture a dialogue that supposes a sender, direct subjectivity (the speaking self) and a receivers – the mark of an otherness. In the work of the Mozambican author, the written word presents itself and is represented by the one who writes – which dominates the writing, the letters. But by dominating it, it can also be questioned, subverted. In this context, through the works on display, the silence of the female voice was repressed through the patriarchal, social and political institution. Dialogue with literary critics and Luso-African Literature scholars, among wich we name: Ana Mafalda Leite, Inocência Mata, Maria Fernanda Afonso, José Pires Laranjeira, Laura Cavalcante Padilha, among others. There were also interlocution with African intellectuals such as Chinua Achebe, Anthony Kwame Appiah, Nkolo Foé, Achille Mbembe and Franz Fanon from Martinica. For the analyses of missives, are employed theories by Andrée Crabbé Rocha; Michel Foucault; Philippe Lejeune, Phillip Rothwell and Leonor Arfuch. The written word was approached, because it is through it that the characters subvert the silencing of their voices.

Este trabalho propõe uma análise de seis livros de contos do autor moçambicano Mia Couto, publicados no período de 1987 a 2004. Fazem parte do corpus as seguintes obras contísticas: Vozes Anoitecidas (1987), Cada Homem é Uma Raça (1990), Estórias Abensonhadas (1994), Contos do Nascer da Terra (1997), Na Berma de Nenhuma Estrada e outros contos (2001) e O Fio das Missangas (2004), ampliando a proposta também para três romances: Vinte e Zinco (1999), A Confissão da Leoa (2012) e Mulheres de Cinzas (2015). A seguinte premissa norteou o trabalho: a escrita como tema na obra do autor pode ser considerada como a porta de entrada para a palavra interdita? Optou-se por ter, como objeto de estudo, a interdição da voz, ou seja, desenvolver um enfoque a partir das personagens que utilizam a escrita para comunicação. O foco foi dado a partir do gênero epistolar (bilhetes, cartas e diários), mas abrindo para outros silenciamentos, como o caso das exiladas da razão. As cartas são objeto de argumentação; exposição da intimidade e documento de foro íntimo. Verificaram-se similitudes e diferenças entre a carta real e a ficcional; elas podem assumir múltiplas características, a saber: conciliadora dos laços familiares; diálogo, monólogo ou solilóquio; preenchimento da solidão; confissão do inconfessável, espaço de contestação, revelação de sentimentos e emoções. Podem ser cartas falsas, de apresentação, de elemento de primeiro contato verbal. Escrevem tanto os alfabetizados como os analfabetos, esses com ajuda de terceiros. As missivas podem ter um destinatário imediato ou direto ou mediato ou indireto; elas conjecturam um diálogo que supõe um remetente, a subjetividade direta (o eu que fala) e um destinatário – a marca de uma alteridade. Nas obras do autor moçambicano, a palavra escrita presentifica-se e é representada por aquele que escreve – o que domina a escrita, a letra. Porém, dominando-a, ela pode também ser questionada, subvertida. Evidenciou-se, neste contexto, por intermédio das obras expostas o silenciamento da voz feminina pela repressão suscitada por meio da instituição patriarcal, social e política. Dialogou-se com críticos literários e estudiosos da literatura africana de língua portuguesa, dentre os quais destacamos: Ana Mafalda Leite, Inocência Mata, Maria Fernanda Afonso, José Pires Laranjeira, Laura Cavalcante Padilha, entre outros. Também houve interlocução com intelectuais africanos como Chinua Achebe, Anthony Kwame Appiah, Nkolo Foé e Achille Mbembe e Franz Fanon, da Martinica. Para dar conta da análise das missivas empregamos Andrée Crabbé Rocha; Michel Foucault; Philippe Lejeune, Phillip Rothwell e Leonor Arfuch. Abordou-se a palavra escrita, porque é por intermédio dela que as personagens subvertem o silenciamento de suas vozes. / This work proposes an analysis of six short story books by the Mozambican author Mia Couto, published between 1987 to 2004. The following works are part of the corpus: Vozes Anoitecidas (1987), Cada Homem é Uma Raça (1990), Estórias Abensonhadas (1994), Contos do Nascer da Terra (1997), Na Berma de Nenhuma Estrada e outros contos (2001) e O Fio das Missangas (2004), extending the proposal also to three novels, namely Vinte e Zinco (1999), A Confissão da Leoa (2012) and Mulheres de Cinzas (2015). The following premise guided the work: can written word as a theme in the author's work be considered as the door to the word interdict? I choose as object of study, the interdiction of the voice, that is, to develop a focus from the characters that use the writing for communication. The focus was given from the epistolary genre (notes, letters and diaries), but increased to other silencers, such as the case of reason exiles. The letters are subject to argument; intimacy exhibition and intimate forum document. There were similarities and differences between real and fictional letters; they can assume multiple characteristics: reconciling family ties; dialogue, monologue or soliloquy; filling the loneliness; confession of the unconfessable, space of contestation, revelation of feelings and emotions. They may be false letters, of presentation, of first element of verbal contact. Both the literate and the illiterate write, this with the help of others. The missives may have an immediate or direct receiver either mediate or indirect receiver, they conjecture a dialogue that supposes a sender, direct subjectivity (the speaking self) and a receivers – the mark of an otherness. In the work of the Mozambican author, the written word presents itself and is represented by the one who writes – which dominates the writing, the letters. But by dominating it, it can also be questioned, subverted. In this context, through the works on display, the silence of the female voice was repressed through the patriarchal, social and political institution. Dialogue with literary critics and Luso-African Literature scholars, among wich we name: Ana Mafalda Leite, Inocência Mata, Maria Fernanda Afonso, José Pires Laranjeira, Laura Cavalcante Padilha, among others. There were also interlocution with African intellectuals such as Chinua Achebe, Anthony Kwame Appiah, Nkolo Foé, Achille Mbembe and Franz Fanon from Martinica. For the analyses of missives, are employed theories by Andrée Crabbé Rocha; Michel Foucault; Philippe Lejeune, Phillip Rothwell and Leonor Arfuch. The written word was approached, because it is through it that the characters subvert the silencing of their voices.