Ruth Morello and A. D. Morrison (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament ...
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The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament Epistles, fictional or pseudepigraphical letters and a wealth of missives on almost every conceivable subject. They offer us a unique insight into ancient practices in the fields of politics, literature, philosophy, medicine, and many other areas. This collection presents a series of case studies in ancient letters, asking how each letter writer manipulates the epistolary tradition, why he chose the letter form over any other, and what effect the publication of volumes of collected letters might have had upon a reader's engagement with epistolary works. This volume brings together both well-established and new scholars currently working in the fields of ancient literature, history, philosophy, and medicine to engage in a shared debate about this most adaptable and ‘interdisciplinary’ of genres.Less
The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament Epistles, fictional or pseudepigraphical letters and a wealth of missives on almost every conceivable subject. They offer us a unique insight into ancient practices in the fields of politics, literature, philosophy, medicine, and many other areas. This collection presents a series of case studies in ancient letters, asking how each letter writer manipulates the epistolary tradition, why he chose the letter form over any other, and what effect the publication of volumes of collected letters might have had upon a reader's engagement with epistolary works. This volume brings together both well-established and new scholars currently working in the fields of ancient literature, history, philosophy, and medicine to engage in a shared debate about this most adaptable and ‘interdisciplinary’ of genres.
Peter White
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195388510
- eISBN:
- 9780199866717
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388510.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book is a guide to the first large letter collection that survives from the Greco‐Roman world. The correspondence of Cicero consists of nearly 950 letters and embraces almost every major ...
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This book is a guide to the first large letter collection that survives from the Greco‐Roman world. The correspondence of Cicero consists of nearly 950 letters and embraces almost every major political figure of the Late Republic. Chapters 1 through 3 of this study describe external constraints affecting the letters that have come down to us. Some were the result of Roman conventions regarding social interaction, while others reflect logistical difficulties of long‐distance communication. Another series of constraints on the way letters were written arose from generic expectations about epistolary form. In addition, an editor helped to shape the published collection by imposing criteria of selection and arrangement that favored certain categories of subject matter and correspondent over others. Chapters 4 through 6 turn from the context of the letters to their content, and discuss three of Cicero's most characteristic epistolary preoccupations. It shows how, in a time of deepening crisis, he and his correspondents drew on a common literary background, on the habit of exchanging advice, and on a rhetoric of leadership in an effort to improve cooperation and to maintain the political culture which they shared.Less
This book is a guide to the first large letter collection that survives from the Greco‐Roman world. The correspondence of Cicero consists of nearly 950 letters and embraces almost every major political figure of the Late Republic. Chapters 1 through 3 of this study describe external constraints affecting the letters that have come down to us. Some were the result of Roman conventions regarding social interaction, while others reflect logistical difficulties of long‐distance communication. Another series of constraints on the way letters were written arose from generic expectations about epistolary form. In addition, an editor helped to shape the published collection by imposing criteria of selection and arrangement that favored certain categories of subject matter and correspondent over others. Chapters 4 through 6 turn from the context of the letters to their content, and discuss three of Cicero's most characteristic epistolary preoccupations. It shows how, in a time of deepening crisis, he and his correspondents drew on a common literary background, on the habit of exchanging advice, and on a rhetoric of leadership in an effort to improve cooperation and to maintain the political culture which they shared.
Jennifer V. Ebbeler
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195372564
- eISBN:
- 9780199932122
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372564.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Religions
This book reconsiders several of Augustine's most well-known letter exchanges, including his famously controversial correspondence with Jerome and his efforts to engage his Donatist rivals in a ...
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This book reconsiders several of Augustine's most well-known letter exchanges, including his famously controversial correspondence with Jerome and his efforts to engage his Donatist rivals in a letter exchange. It reads these letters with close attention to conventional epistolary norms and practices, in an effort to identify innovative features of Augustine's epistolary practice. In particular, it notes and analyzes Augustine's adaptation of the traditionally friendly letter exchange to the correction of perceived error in the Christian community. In transforming the practice of letter exchange into a tool of correction, Augustine draws on both the classical philosophical tradition and also scripture. His particular innovation is his insistence that this process of correction can—and often must—be done in the potentially public form of a letter exchange rather than in the privacy of a face-to-face conversation. This is particularly true when the perceived error is one that has the potential to jeopardize the salvation of the entire Christian community. In offering epistolary correction, and requesting reciprocal correction from his correspondents, Augustine treats his practice of letter exchange as a performance of Christian caritas. Indeed, in his view, the friendliest correspondence was that which was concerned solely with preserving the salvation of the participants. In recognizing Augustine's commitment to the corrective correspondence and thus reading his letters with attention to their corrective function, we gain new insights into the complicated dynamics of Augustine's relationships with Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, the Donatists, and Pelagius.Less
This book reconsiders several of Augustine's most well-known letter exchanges, including his famously controversial correspondence with Jerome and his efforts to engage his Donatist rivals in a letter exchange. It reads these letters with close attention to conventional epistolary norms and practices, in an effort to identify innovative features of Augustine's epistolary practice. In particular, it notes and analyzes Augustine's adaptation of the traditionally friendly letter exchange to the correction of perceived error in the Christian community. In transforming the practice of letter exchange into a tool of correction, Augustine draws on both the classical philosophical tradition and also scripture. His particular innovation is his insistence that this process of correction can—and often must—be done in the potentially public form of a letter exchange rather than in the privacy of a face-to-face conversation. This is particularly true when the perceived error is one that has the potential to jeopardize the salvation of the entire Christian community. In offering epistolary correction, and requesting reciprocal correction from his correspondents, Augustine treats his practice of letter exchange as a performance of Christian caritas. Indeed, in his view, the friendliest correspondence was that which was concerned solely with preserving the salvation of the participants. In recognizing Augustine's commitment to the corrective correspondence and thus reading his letters with attention to their corrective function, we gain new insights into the complicated dynamics of Augustine's relationships with Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, the Donatists, and Pelagius.
Sarah M. S. Pearsall
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199532995
- eISBN:
- 9780191714443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199532995.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter defines the concept of familiarity, a means by which even individuals not related by family could achieve family-like relationships. Such familiarity — distinguished from either ...
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This chapter defines the concept of familiarity, a means by which even individuals not related by family could achieve family-like relationships. Such familiarity — distinguished from either politeness or intimacy — allowed individuals adrift to join other circles and so find the support they implied. The chapter enumerates the ways familiarity could be established among non-family members by such means as the education and care of a child, or courtship and marriage. Letters helped to carve out a space of familiarity, even when distance separated family members, and forced them to rely on non-family members. Many printed letters, in epistolary manuals (such as The Complete Letter Writer), epistolary novels (such as Samuel Richardson's Pamela), and letter collections (such as that by Lord Chesterfield) helped to popularize this tone of familiarity. Family letters were a critical means of forging familiarity, and they did so in their tones and style, as well as their substance.Less
This chapter defines the concept of familiarity, a means by which even individuals not related by family could achieve family-like relationships. Such familiarity — distinguished from either politeness or intimacy — allowed individuals adrift to join other circles and so find the support they implied. The chapter enumerates the ways familiarity could be established among non-family members by such means as the education and care of a child, or courtship and marriage. Letters helped to carve out a space of familiarity, even when distance separated family members, and forced them to rely on non-family members. Many printed letters, in epistolary manuals (such as The Complete Letter Writer), epistolary novels (such as Samuel Richardson's Pamela), and letter collections (such as that by Lord Chesterfield) helped to popularize this tone of familiarity. Family letters were a critical means of forging familiarity, and they did so in their tones and style, as well as their substance.
Holly Gayley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231180528
- eISBN:
- 9780231542753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231180528.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Love Letters from Golok chronicles the courtship between two Buddhist tantric masters, Tare Lhamo (1938–2002) and Namtrul Rinpoche (1944–2011), and their passion for reinvigorating Buddhism in ...
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Love Letters from Golok chronicles the courtship between two Buddhist tantric masters, Tare Lhamo (1938–2002) and Namtrul Rinpoche (1944–2011), and their passion for reinvigorating Buddhism in eastern Tibet during the post-Mao era. In fifty-six letters exchanged from 1978 to 1980, Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche envisioned a shared destiny to "heal the damage" done to Buddhism during the years leading up to and including the Cultural Revolution. Holly Gayley retrieves the personal and prophetic dimensions of their courtship and its consummation in a twenty-year religious career that informs issues of gender and agency in Buddhism, cultural preservation among Tibetan communities, and alternative histories for minorities in China. The correspondence between Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche is the first collection of "love letters" to come to light in Tibetan literature. Blending tantric imagery with poetic and folk song styles, their letters have a fresh vernacular tone comparable to the love songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, but with an eastern Tibetan flavor. Gayley reads these letters against hagiographic writings about the couple, supplemented by field research, to illuminate representational strategies that serve to narrate cultural trauma in a redemptive key, quite unlike Chinese scar literature or the testimonials of exile Tibetans. With special attention to Tare Lhamo's role as a tantric heroine and her hagiographic fusion with Namtrul Rinpoche, Gayley vividly shows how Buddhist masters have adapted Tibetan literary genres to share private intimacies and address contemporary social concerns.Less
Love Letters from Golok chronicles the courtship between two Buddhist tantric masters, Tare Lhamo (1938–2002) and Namtrul Rinpoche (1944–2011), and their passion for reinvigorating Buddhism in eastern Tibet during the post-Mao era. In fifty-six letters exchanged from 1978 to 1980, Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche envisioned a shared destiny to "heal the damage" done to Buddhism during the years leading up to and including the Cultural Revolution. Holly Gayley retrieves the personal and prophetic dimensions of their courtship and its consummation in a twenty-year religious career that informs issues of gender and agency in Buddhism, cultural preservation among Tibetan communities, and alternative histories for minorities in China. The correspondence between Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche is the first collection of "love letters" to come to light in Tibetan literature. Blending tantric imagery with poetic and folk song styles, their letters have a fresh vernacular tone comparable to the love songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, but with an eastern Tibetan flavor. Gayley reads these letters against hagiographic writings about the couple, supplemented by field research, to illuminate representational strategies that serve to narrate cultural trauma in a redemptive key, quite unlike Chinese scar literature or the testimonials of exile Tibetans. With special attention to Tare Lhamo's role as a tantric heroine and her hagiographic fusion with Namtrul Rinpoche, Gayley vividly shows how Buddhist masters have adapted Tibetan literary genres to share private intimacies and address contemporary social concerns.
Efrossini Spentzou
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255689
- eISBN:
- 9780191719608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255689.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on those features of the Heroides which are directly related to their epistolary form, in an attempt to explore the ways in which letter-writing and letter-reading creates and ...
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This chapter focuses on those features of the Heroides which are directly related to their epistolary form, in an attempt to explore the ways in which letter-writing and letter-reading creates and manipulates meaning in the Ovidian collection. In stressing the epistolary element within the collection's generic multivalence, the chapter's arguments draw on insights concerning the epistolary novel, a genre distinguished in modern times with acknowledged debts to Ovid's Heroides.Less
This chapter focuses on those features of the Heroides which are directly related to their epistolary form, in an attempt to explore the ways in which letter-writing and letter-reading creates and manipulates meaning in the Ovidian collection. In stressing the epistolary element within the collection's generic multivalence, the chapter's arguments draw on insights concerning the epistolary novel, a genre distinguished in modern times with acknowledged debts to Ovid's Heroides.
Jason König
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines Alciphron's Letters, which portray a world of longing and loss, a world of fragile happiness and comic disillusionment. There are four books: Letters from Fishermen, Farmers, ...
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This chapter examines Alciphron's Letters, which portray a world of longing and loss, a world of fragile happiness and comic disillusionment. There are four books: Letters from Fishermen, Farmers, Parasites, and Courtesans. Each of those four groups reveals through its letters its own desires and sufferings, its own extravagant dreams and bathetic failures. Two themes (as far as they can be separated) are particularly prominent: precarious or failed aspiration to material gain, love, or physical comfort; and precarious or failed aspiration to social advancement or role-swapping. The second of those preoccupations leads to an impression of interconnection between the different parts of the work, in the many letters where characters express their desire to cross from membership of one group to another. The unrealistic character of the characters' dreams is matched by the inaccessibility and unreality of Alciphron's world for its readers. This chapter asks how far the text's epistolary form works to intensify its thematic obsessions, with a particular emphasis on formal issues using the work of Janet Altman as a starting-point.Less
This chapter examines Alciphron's Letters, which portray a world of longing and loss, a world of fragile happiness and comic disillusionment. There are four books: Letters from Fishermen, Farmers, Parasites, and Courtesans. Each of those four groups reveals through its letters its own desires and sufferings, its own extravagant dreams and bathetic failures. Two themes (as far as they can be separated) are particularly prominent: precarious or failed aspiration to material gain, love, or physical comfort; and precarious or failed aspiration to social advancement or role-swapping. The second of those preoccupations leads to an impression of interconnection between the different parts of the work, in the many letters where characters express their desire to cross from membership of one group to another. The unrealistic character of the characters' dreams is matched by the inaccessibility and unreality of Alciphron's world for its readers. This chapter asks how far the text's epistolary form works to intensify its thematic obsessions, with a particular emphasis on formal issues using the work of Janet Altman as a starting-point.
Owen Hodkinson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter suggests some ways of thinking about the epistolary genre and its development in Greek literature, focusing on some particular examples from ‘Second Sophistic’ epistolographers who built ...
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This chapter suggests some ways of thinking about the epistolary genre and its development in Greek literature, focusing on some particular examples from ‘Second Sophistic’ epistolographers who built upon and added to these developments. Taking examples from fictional letters in which there seems to be no obstacle to verbal communication, this chapter argues that they do not constitute lapses in verisimilitude on the author's part; rather, such letters add variety to the imagined situations of their letter-writers, allowing the reader to reconstruct possible motives for writing where none is mentioned. The authors thus illustrate some potential advantages of the letter over verbal communication.Less
This chapter suggests some ways of thinking about the epistolary genre and its development in Greek literature, focusing on some particular examples from ‘Second Sophistic’ epistolographers who built upon and added to these developments. Taking examples from fictional letters in which there seems to be no obstacle to verbal communication, this chapter argues that they do not constitute lapses in verisimilitude on the author's part; rather, such letters add variety to the imagined situations of their letter-writers, allowing the reader to reconstruct possible motives for writing where none is mentioned. The authors thus illustrate some potential advantages of the letter over verbal communication.
Jennifer Ebbeler
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter considers two celebrated epistolary relationships from the 4th century AD: the famously dysfunctional correspondence of Augustine and Jerome, and the reputedly bitter final years of ...
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This chapter considers two celebrated epistolary relationships from the 4th century AD: the famously dysfunctional correspondence of Augustine and Jerome, and the reputedly bitter final years of Ausonius' correspondence with his former pupil Paulinus. In both of these exchanges, epistolary codes are cleverly manipulated to remarkable rhetorical effect; and any explication of what went wrong (or right) in these complicated letter exchanges requires close attention to the ‘rules’ of the epistolary game. In the case of Augustine and Jerome, the chapter argues that the discernible hostilities in the correspondence arise because Augustine deliberately refuses to play the iuuenis to Jerome's senex and instead represents himself as Jerome's exegetical equal. In the case of Ausonius and Paulinus, on the other hand, it is precisely through their careful adherence to the codes of father-son letters that evidence for a persistent amicitia can be seen despite apparent tensions.Less
This chapter considers two celebrated epistolary relationships from the 4th century AD: the famously dysfunctional correspondence of Augustine and Jerome, and the reputedly bitter final years of Ausonius' correspondence with his former pupil Paulinus. In both of these exchanges, epistolary codes are cleverly manipulated to remarkable rhetorical effect; and any explication of what went wrong (or right) in these complicated letter exchanges requires close attention to the ‘rules’ of the epistolary game. In the case of Augustine and Jerome, the chapter argues that the discernible hostilities in the correspondence arise because Augustine deliberately refuses to play the iuuenis to Jerome's senex and instead represents himself as Jerome's exegetical equal. In the case of Ausonius and Paulinus, on the other hand, it is precisely through their careful adherence to the codes of father-son letters that evidence for a persistent amicitia can be seen despite apparent tensions.
Ingrid Tieken‐Boon van Ostade
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199579273
- eISBN:
- 9780191595219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579273.003.0005
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, English Language
Lowth's social networks at different periods in his life using his collected correspondence as a basis but also other documents, like his lists of presentation copies for Isaiah (1778). An important ...
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Lowth's social networks at different periods in his life using his collected correspondence as a basis but also other documents, like his lists of presentation copies for Isaiah (1778). An important tool for this is Lowth's use of epistolary formulas, which can be employed as an index of politeness.Less
Lowth's social networks at different periods in his life using his collected correspondence as a basis but also other documents, like his lists of presentation copies for Isaiah (1778). An important tool for this is Lowth's use of epistolary formulas, which can be employed as an index of politeness.
Ingrid Tieken‐Boon van Ostade
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199579273
- eISBN:
- 9780191595219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579273.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, English Language
Subdivided into different categories of formality, Lowth's letters are analysed in this chapter to describe his communicative competence. Depending on the nature of his relationship with his ...
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Subdivided into different categories of formality, Lowth's letters are analysed in this chapter to describe his communicative competence. Depending on the nature of his relationship with his addressees, Lowth's language (spelling, lexis) is shown to vary, to the extent that his use of non-standard spelling serves as an indication of intimacy.Less
Subdivided into different categories of formality, Lowth's letters are analysed in this chapter to describe his communicative competence. Depending on the nature of his relationship with his addressees, Lowth's language (spelling, lexis) is shown to vary, to the extent that his use of non-standard spelling serves as an indication of intimacy.
A. D. Morrison
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter investigates how the ‘epistolarity’, the ‘letteriness’ of Horace's Epistles relates to and complements the didactic, instructive element of the book and vice versa. Horace is the first ...
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This chapter investigates how the ‘epistolarity’, the ‘letteriness’ of Horace's Epistles relates to and complements the didactic, instructive element of the book and vice versa. Horace is the first poet to compose or construct a book of verse-letters, a dedicated poetry-book in epistolary form, Epistles book 1 (in 20/19 BC). Epistles 1 also plays an important role in the development of ancient philosophical epistolography. It adapts, in part, the letters of Epicurus, and itself forms a model (along with those same letters of Epicurus) for Seneca's letters to Lucilius, but it also engages with Lucretius' philosophical didactic poem, the De Rerum Natura, as well as the figure and methods of the archetypal ancient philosopher, Socrates. In Epistles 1 Horace explicitly employs what can be usefully described as the ‘didactic mode’: the collection of letters contains very many imperatives, and other ‘imperatival expressions’, directing, instructing, and exhorting its internal addressees in various ways. In various parts of the different epistles, then, ‘Horace’, the narrator, seems to be teaching or advising his addressees.Less
This chapter investigates how the ‘epistolarity’, the ‘letteriness’ of Horace's Epistles relates to and complements the didactic, instructive element of the book and vice versa. Horace is the first poet to compose or construct a book of verse-letters, a dedicated poetry-book in epistolary form, Epistles book 1 (in 20/19 BC). Epistles 1 also plays an important role in the development of ancient philosophical epistolography. It adapts, in part, the letters of Epicurus, and itself forms a model (along with those same letters of Epicurus) for Seneca's letters to Lucilius, but it also engages with Lucretius' philosophical didactic poem, the De Rerum Natura, as well as the figure and methods of the archetypal ancient philosopher, Socrates. In Epistles 1 Horace explicitly employs what can be usefully described as the ‘didactic mode’: the collection of letters contains very many imperatives, and other ‘imperatival expressions’, directing, instructing, and exhorting its internal addressees in various ways. In various parts of the different epistles, then, ‘Horace’, the narrator, seems to be teaching or advising his addressees.
Brad Inwood
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines what makes Seneca's philosophical letters work the way they do for their readers and why they were written the way they were. In this discussion, it is suggested that some of ...
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This chapter examines what makes Seneca's philosophical letters work the way they do for their readers and why they were written the way they were. In this discussion, it is suggested that some of the striking features of the letters owe more than has yet been appreciated to the influence of the models Seneca had in view when he composed the collection and the formal constraints imposed by the epistolary genre. Based on Seneca's character and motivation, the chapter explores why he wrote in epistolary form, or why, at the end of a long life and a long and tumultuous political career, and (perhaps most relevant) at the end of a brilliant literary career of unmatched versatility, he wrote letters in the first place.Less
This chapter examines what makes Seneca's philosophical letters work the way they do for their readers and why they were written the way they were. In this discussion, it is suggested that some of the striking features of the letters owe more than has yet been appreciated to the influence of the models Seneca had in view when he composed the collection and the formal constraints imposed by the epistolary genre. Based on Seneca's character and motivation, the chapter explores why he wrote in epistolary form, or why, at the end of a long life and a long and tumultuous political career, and (perhaps most relevant) at the end of a brilliant literary career of unmatched versatility, he wrote letters in the first place.
Ruth Morello
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary ...
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This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary friendship and literary criticism. The letter presents another lesson in how to operate in literary society, taught by a man who seems unsure of himself in literary production, but confident that he does at least know how the social sides of literary activity should function. Pliny's own iudicium is insufficient: he needs to see, hear, and act on the responses of his friends, and the recitation is part of the process of literary production. When friends fail in their duty to encourage and to provide frank substantive criticism, disapproval can degenerate into inuidia, the resentment (potentially resulting in malicious action) of another's success or material benefit, or the generalized ill-feeling incurred by inappropriate behaviour. It is a prominent motif in Cicero's letters, and is observed in Pliny's ‘episto-literary’ project.Less
This chapter examines in detail Pliny's ‘inclusive’ persona, and particularly the ways in which his correspondence fosters a community of addressees and develops a didactic project in literary friendship and literary criticism. The letter presents another lesson in how to operate in literary society, taught by a man who seems unsure of himself in literary production, but confident that he does at least know how the social sides of literary activity should function. Pliny's own iudicium is insufficient: he needs to see, hear, and act on the responses of his friends, and the recitation is part of the process of literary production. When friends fail in their duty to encourage and to provide frank substantive criticism, disapproval can degenerate into inuidia, the resentment (potentially resulting in malicious action) of another's success or material benefit, or the generalized ill-feeling incurred by inappropriate behaviour. It is a prominent motif in Cicero's letters, and is observed in Pliny's ‘episto-literary’ project.
James Daybell
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199259915
- eISBN:
- 9780191717437
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259915.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book presents a study of women's letters and letter-writing during the early modern period, and acts as a corrective to traditional ways of reading and discussing letters as private, elite, ...
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This book presents a study of women's letters and letter-writing during the early modern period, and acts as a corrective to traditional ways of reading and discussing letters as private, elite, male, and non-political. Based on over 3,000 manuscript letters, it shows that letter-writing was a larger and more socially diversified area of female activity than has been hitherto assumed. In that letters constitute the largest body of extant 16th-century women's writing, the book initiates a reassessment of women's education and literacy in the period. As indicators of literacy, letters yield physical evidence of rudimentary writing activity and abilities, document ‘higher’ forms of female literacy, and highlight women's mastery of formal rhetorical and epistolary conventions. The book also stresses that letters are unparalleled as intimate and immediate records of family relationships, and as media for personal and self-reflective forms of female expression. Read as documents that inscribe social and gender relations, letters shed light on the complex range of women's personal relationships, as female power and authority fluctuated, negotiated on an individual basis. Furthermore, correspondence highlights the important political roles played by early modern women. Female letter-writers were integral in cultivating and maintaining patronage and kinship networks; they were active as suitors for crown favour, and operated as political intermediaries and patrons in their own right, using letters to elicit influence. Letters thus help to locate differing forms of female power within the family, locality and occasionally on the wider political stage, and offer invaluable primary evidence from which to reconstruct the lives of early modern women.Less
This book presents a study of women's letters and letter-writing during the early modern period, and acts as a corrective to traditional ways of reading and discussing letters as private, elite, male, and non-political. Based on over 3,000 manuscript letters, it shows that letter-writing was a larger and more socially diversified area of female activity than has been hitherto assumed. In that letters constitute the largest body of extant 16th-century women's writing, the book initiates a reassessment of women's education and literacy in the period. As indicators of literacy, letters yield physical evidence of rudimentary writing activity and abilities, document ‘higher’ forms of female literacy, and highlight women's mastery of formal rhetorical and epistolary conventions. The book also stresses that letters are unparalleled as intimate and immediate records of family relationships, and as media for personal and self-reflective forms of female expression. Read as documents that inscribe social and gender relations, letters shed light on the complex range of women's personal relationships, as female power and authority fluctuated, negotiated on an individual basis. Furthermore, correspondence highlights the important political roles played by early modern women. Female letter-writers were integral in cultivating and maintaining patronage and kinship networks; they were active as suitors for crown favour, and operated as political intermediaries and patrons in their own right, using letters to elicit influence. Letters thus help to locate differing forms of female power within the family, locality and occasionally on the wider political stage, and offer invaluable primary evidence from which to reconstruct the lives of early modern women.
Adrian Gully
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633739
- eISBN:
- 9780748653133
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633739.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This book has brought to the fore some of the complexities and the beauties of the culture of letter-writing in the pre-modern Islamic period, and in focusing on the account of the secretary and his ...
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This book has brought to the fore some of the complexities and the beauties of the culture of letter-writing in the pre-modern Islamic period, and in focusing on the account of the secretary and his craft, has provided the reader with a narrative which evokes something of the literary, cultural and historical environment of that period. What was originally conceived as an idea to conduct a stylistic analysis of Arabic epistolary prose soon developed into an exploration of writerly culture in the 5th to 9th/11th to 15th centuries. This study has shown that literary culture surrounding epistolary prose evolved at a point in history of great intellectual vibrancy, and has also shown the nature of Arabic epistolary writing, which is dynamic. While the epistolary protocol of letter-writing was set out early in the life of Islamic society, the profile of the secretary and the function of epistolary communication changed and developed following the expansion of the Islamic world.Less
This book has brought to the fore some of the complexities and the beauties of the culture of letter-writing in the pre-modern Islamic period, and in focusing on the account of the secretary and his craft, has provided the reader with a narrative which evokes something of the literary, cultural and historical environment of that period. What was originally conceived as an idea to conduct a stylistic analysis of Arabic epistolary prose soon developed into an exploration of writerly culture in the 5th to 9th/11th to 15th centuries. This study has shown that literary culture surrounding epistolary prose evolved at a point in history of great intellectual vibrancy, and has also shown the nature of Arabic epistolary writing, which is dynamic. While the epistolary protocol of letter-writing was set out early in the life of Islamic society, the profile of the secretary and the function of epistolary communication changed and developed following the expansion of the Islamic world.
James Daybell
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199259915
- eISBN:
- 9780191717437
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259915.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter has several aims: historiographical, methodological, and thematic. Beginning with an emblematic case study of Elizabeth, countess of Shrewsbury, it challenges assumptions of ...
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This chapter has several aims: historiographical, methodological, and thematic. Beginning with an emblematic case study of Elizabeth, countess of Shrewsbury, it challenges assumptions of letter-writing as private, elite, male, and non-political. It places the study of 16th-century women's letter-writing in the context of recent developments in social history, as well as within the context of current approaches to women's history, historiography, and literature. It further outlines the scope and main themes of the book, analyses issues of female literacy and education, and addresses methodological and conceptual issues relating both to the nature of letters as a source, and the degree to which epistolary models scripted social relations. Finally, the chapter looks at the politics of female letter-writing, assessing the significance of women's ‘networking’ letters and letters of petition, and their involvement in manuscript news networks.Less
This chapter has several aims: historiographical, methodological, and thematic. Beginning with an emblematic case study of Elizabeth, countess of Shrewsbury, it challenges assumptions of letter-writing as private, elite, male, and non-political. It places the study of 16th-century women's letter-writing in the context of recent developments in social history, as well as within the context of current approaches to women's history, historiography, and literature. It further outlines the scope and main themes of the book, analyses issues of female literacy and education, and addresses methodological and conceptual issues relating both to the nature of letters as a source, and the degree to which epistolary models scripted social relations. Finally, the chapter looks at the politics of female letter-writing, assessing the significance of women's ‘networking’ letters and letters of petition, and their involvement in manuscript news networks.
James Daybell
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199259915
- eISBN:
- 9780191717437
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259915.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter surveys correspondence between spouses, emphasizing the variety and complexity of marital experience, and examining the effects on letters as a source of rising female literacy and ...
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This chapter surveys correspondence between spouses, emphasizing the variety and complexity of marital experience, and examining the effects on letters as a source of rising female literacy and greater epistolary privacy between partners. It stresses that letters reveal the widespread existence of emotional as well as social, economic, and political bonds within marriage, and indicate mutual favourable expectations of conjugal relationships. Allied to this, it argues that correspondence was not merely a pragmatic way of conducting business and conveying information, but in fact performed more privy and intimate functions, and assumed emotional significance. This chapter also assesses the extent to which restrictive gender codes of female behaviour were enforced in practice, mapping the location of power within marital relationships and the scope of wives' activities and interests. Finally, it highlights the differences between husbands' and wives' letters: husbands more frequently articulated emotion and affection in their correspondence than did wives.Less
This chapter surveys correspondence between spouses, emphasizing the variety and complexity of marital experience, and examining the effects on letters as a source of rising female literacy and greater epistolary privacy between partners. It stresses that letters reveal the widespread existence of emotional as well as social, economic, and political bonds within marriage, and indicate mutual favourable expectations of conjugal relationships. Allied to this, it argues that correspondence was not merely a pragmatic way of conducting business and conveying information, but in fact performed more privy and intimate functions, and assumed emotional significance. This chapter also assesses the extent to which restrictive gender codes of female behaviour were enforced in practice, mapping the location of power within marital relationships and the scope of wives' activities and interests. Finally, it highlights the differences between husbands' and wives' letters: husbands more frequently articulated emotion and affection in their correspondence than did wives.
Nicola J. Watson
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112976
- eISBN:
- 9780191670893
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112976.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Whatever happened to the epistolary novel? Why was it that by 1825 the principal narrative form of 18th-century fiction had been replaced by the third-person and often historicised models which have ...
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Whatever happened to the epistolary novel? Why was it that by 1825 the principal narrative form of 18th-century fiction had been replaced by the third-person and often historicised models which have predominated ever since? This original and wide-ranging study charts the suppression of epistolary fiction, exploring the attempted radicalization of the genre by Wollstonecraft and other feminists in the 1790s, its rejection and parody by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the increasingly discredited role played by letters in the historical novels of Jane Porter and Walter Scott, and their troubling, ghostly presence in the Gothic narratives of James Hogg and Charles Maturin. The shift in narrative method is seen as a response to anxieties about the French Revolution, with the epistolary, feminized, and sentimental plot replaced by a more authoritarian third-person mode as part of a wider redrawing of the relation between the individual and the social consensus.Less
Whatever happened to the epistolary novel? Why was it that by 1825 the principal narrative form of 18th-century fiction had been replaced by the third-person and often historicised models which have predominated ever since? This original and wide-ranging study charts the suppression of epistolary fiction, exploring the attempted radicalization of the genre by Wollstonecraft and other feminists in the 1790s, its rejection and parody by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the increasingly discredited role played by letters in the historical novels of Jane Porter and Walter Scott, and their troubling, ghostly presence in the Gothic narratives of James Hogg and Charles Maturin. The shift in narrative method is seen as a response to anxieties about the French Revolution, with the epistolary, feminized, and sentimental plot replaced by a more authoritarian third-person mode as part of a wider redrawing of the relation between the individual and the social consensus.
Kate Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730919
- eISBN:
- 9780199918461
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730919.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
In 1889 uniformed post boys were found moonlighting in a West End brothel frequented by men of the upper classes. "The Cleveland Street Scandal" erupted and Victorian Britain was gripped by the ...
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In 1889 uniformed post boys were found moonlighting in a West End brothel frequented by men of the upper classes. "The Cleveland Street Scandal" erupted and Victorian Britain was gripped by the possibility that the Post Office – a bureaucratic backbone of nation and empire – was inspiring and servicing perverse passions. The alliance between transgressive sex and the Post Office that the scandal illuminated was neither incidental nor singular; there was something queer about the post in the nineteenth century. Postal Pleasures tells the story of queer postal relations, from Post Office reforms initiated in 1840 up to the imperial end of the nineteenth century. It tells this story by analysing literature that expresses the cultural consequences of this peculiar kind of "going postal." Victorian writers abandoned the epistolary novel in favour of postal fiction. The postal network, its uniformed employees and its material trappings – envelopes, postmarks, stamps – were used to signal and circulate sexual intrigue. For Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Eliza Lynn Lynton, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and others, the idea of an envelope promiscuously jostling its neighbours in a post boy’s bag, or the notion that secrets passed through the eyes and fingers of telegraph girls, was more stimulating that the actual contents of correspondence. By the period’s end, the postal system had become both an instrument and a metaphor for sexual relations that crossed and double-crossed lines of class, marriage and heterosexuality.Less
In 1889 uniformed post boys were found moonlighting in a West End brothel frequented by men of the upper classes. "The Cleveland Street Scandal" erupted and Victorian Britain was gripped by the possibility that the Post Office – a bureaucratic backbone of nation and empire – was inspiring and servicing perverse passions. The alliance between transgressive sex and the Post Office that the scandal illuminated was neither incidental nor singular; there was something queer about the post in the nineteenth century. Postal Pleasures tells the story of queer postal relations, from Post Office reforms initiated in 1840 up to the imperial end of the nineteenth century. It tells this story by analysing literature that expresses the cultural consequences of this peculiar kind of "going postal." Victorian writers abandoned the epistolary novel in favour of postal fiction. The postal network, its uniformed employees and its material trappings – envelopes, postmarks, stamps – were used to signal and circulate sexual intrigue. For Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Eliza Lynn Lynton, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and others, the idea of an envelope promiscuously jostling its neighbours in a post boy’s bag, or the notion that secrets passed through the eyes and fingers of telegraph girls, was more stimulating that the actual contents of correspondence. By the period’s end, the postal system had become both an instrument and a metaphor for sexual relations that crossed and double-crossed lines of class, marriage and heterosexuality.
