Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 15001850

Description

"Thomas O. Beebee examines epistolary fiction as a major phenomenon in Europe from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century. His study is the first to consider epistolary fiction as a pan-European form of importance to all major European languages. It demonstrates that such fiction can be found everywhere, not just in texts aimed specifically at aesthetic consumption. Beebee begins with the premise that the letter was a Protean form which crystallized social relationships in a variety of ways, and that fictional uses of the letter appropriated the status and power the letter had already acquired from its established functions within other discursive practices. He discusses the letter-writing manual, self-referential aspects of the letter, news and travel reporting, the relationship between letters and gender, and historically specific use of epistolarity by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors. The book also offers a bibliography of major European epistolary fiction to 1850."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

The three women depicted in plate I derived from Renaissance mythography and its explications of the three Graces: Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Epistolary fiction in Europe, 1500-1850Cambridge University Press1999-01-01
• Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 15001850PaperbackCambridge University Press2006-03-20