Proximity and Protest in the 18th-Century Letter and its Afterlives

Catalog description

In this course we unearth the lost art of letter-writing and study epistolary form in interdisciplinary context, putting the epistolary novel, one of the most popular prose forms of the eighteenth century, in conversation with a range of primary documents (newspapers, pamphlets, travel letters) as well as works of philosophy and critical theoretical works. As we do so, we will ask how these letters let us unfold the problems of distance, intimacy, and exchange. Of particular interest to us will be how the epistolary form accounts for the scenes of its composition and represents the circumstances and space around the act of writing: In what ways does the epistolary novel (along with collections of letters of the period) imagine travel and contact with other cultures? What exactly is the “readerly” intimacy letters create, and how do these strategies portray and construct gender? How do these letters depict strangers, foreigners, and other “others,” and how do they address or confront the public? We will think about how the letter reinforces or resists norms. Our readings will take us across Europe and the Atlantic world and, more locally, to the Wrightsman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we will consider the domestic spaces, objects, and material histories that inform some exemplars of this literary form. Finally, we will conclude our inquiry with a look at the epistolary form’s 21st-century afterlife, and students can expect some creative projects along the way. Major texts may include: Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721); Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1741); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie, or The New Heloise (1761); Lady Mary Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters (1763); Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton (1797); and Leonora Sansay, Secret History: or, The Horrors of Santo Domingo (1808).